A Short History of English Printing : 1476-1900

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A Short History of

English Printing BOOKS ABOUT BOOKS

Edited bv A. W. POLLARD

POPULAR RE-ISSUE

BOOKS IN MANUSCRIPT. By Falconer Madan, Bodley's Librarian, Oxford. THE BINDING OF BOOKS. By H. P. HORNE. A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLISH PRINTING. By II. K. Plomer. EARLY ILLUSTRATED BOOKS. By A. W. POLI.ARD.

Other volumes in pi-eparatioit. A Short History of English Printing 1476-1900

By Henry R. Plomer

London

Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibncr & Co., Ltd. Broadway House, 68-74 Carter Lane, E.C, MDCCCCXV I-'irst Edition, 1900 Second (Popular) Edition, 1915

The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved Editor's Preface

When Mr. Plomer consented at my request to write a short history of EngHsh printing which should stop neither at the end of the fifteenth century, nor at the end of the sixteenth century, nor at 1640, but should come down, as best it could, to our ovm day, we were not without appre- hensions that the task might prove one of some difficulty. How difficult it would be we had certainly no idea, or the book would never have been begun, and now that it is Imished I would bespeak the reader's sympathies, on Mr. Plomer 's behalf, that its inevitable shortcomings may be the more generously forgiven. If we look at what has already been written on the subject the difficulties will be more easily appreciated. In England, as in other countries, the period in the history of the press which is best known to us is, by the perversity of antiquaries, that which is furthest removed from our own time. Of all that can be vi Editor's Preface learnt about Caxton the late Mr. William Blades set down in his monumental work nine-tenths, and the zeal of Henry Bradshaw and of Mr. Gordon

Duff has added nearly all that was lacking in this storehouse. Mr. Gordon Duff has extended his labours to the other English printers of the fifteenth century, giving in his Early English

Printing (Kegan Paul, 1896) a conspectus, with facsimiles of their types, and in his first series of Sandars Lectures presenting a detailed account of their work, based on the personal examination of every book or fragment from their workshops which his unwearied diligence has been able to discover. Originality for this period being out of the question, Mr. Plomer's task was to select, under a constant sense of obligation, from the mass of details which have been brought together for this short period, and to preserve due proportion in their treatment.

For the work of the printers of the next half- century we have Mr. Duff's liter Sandars Lectures, and jNIr. Plomcr might fairly claim that he himself, by the numerous documents which he has unearthed at the Record Office and at Somerset Editor's Preface vii

House, has made some contributions to it of considerable value and interest. It is to his credit, if I may say so, that so little is \\Titten here of these discoveries. In a larger book the story of the brawl in which Pynson's head came so nigh to being broken, or of John Rast ell's suit against the theatrical costumier who impounded the dresses used in his private theatre, would form pleasant digressions, but in a sketch of a large subject there is no room for digressions, and these personal incidents have been sternly ignored by their dis- coverer. Even his first love, Robert Wycr, has been allotted not more than six lines above the space which is due to him, and generally Mr. Plomer has compressed the story told in the Typographical

Antiquities of Ames, Herbert, and Dibdin with much impartiality.

When we pass beyond the year 1556, which witnessed the incorporation of the Stationers'

Company, Mr. Arber's Transcripts from the Com- pany's Registers become the chief source of information, and Mr. Isomer's pages bear ample record of the use he has made of them, and the numerous documents printed by Mr. Arbcr in his prefaces. viii Editor's Preface

After 1603. the date at which Mr. Arber discontinues, to the sorrow of all bibUographers, his epitome of the annual output of the press, information is far less abundant. After 1640 it becomes a matter of shreds and patches, v.ith no other continuous aid than Mr. Talbot Reid's admirable work, A History of the Old English Letter Foundries, wxitten from a different standpoint, to serve as a guide. His own researches at the Record Office have enabled Mr.

Plomer to enlarge considerably our knowledge of the printers at work during the second half of the seventeenth century, but when the State made up its mind to leave the printers alone, even this source of information lapses, and the pioneer has to gather what he may from the imprints in books which come under his hand, from notices of a few individual printers, and stray anecdotes and memo- randa. Through this almost pathless forest Mr. Plomer has threaded his way, and though the road he has made may be broken and imperfect, the fact that a road exists, which they can widen and mend, will be of incalculable advantage to all students of printing.

Besides the indebtedness already stated to the Editor's Preface ix works of Blades, Mr. Gordon Duff, Mr. Arber, and

Mr. Reid, acknowledgments are also due for the help derived from Mr. Allnutt's papers on English vol. Provincial Printing [Bihliographica, ii.) and

Mr. \\'arren's history of the Chiswick Press [The

Charles Whittinghams, Printers ; Grolier Club, 1896).

Lest Mr. Plomer should be made responsible for borrowed faults, it must also be stated that the account of the Kelmscott Press is mainly taken from an article contributed to The Guardian by the present writer. A. W. Pollard.

Contents

PAGB Editor's Preface v

CHAPTER I

Caxton and his Contemporaries

CHAPTER n

From 1501 to the Death of Wynkyn de Worde 27

CHAPTER HI

Thomas Berthelet to John Day . . 50

CHAPTER IV

John Day 63

CHAPTER V

Day's • Contemporaries • John . 8^ xi xii Contents

CHAPTER VI PACE Provincial Presses of the Sixteenth Century 98

CHAPTER Vn

The Stuart Period (1603-1640) . . . 126

CHAPTER Vni

From 1640 to 1700 156

CHAPTER IX

From 1700 to 1750 189

CHAPTER X

From 1750 to 1800 219

CHAPTER XI

The Nineteenth Century .... 238

Index 269 A Short History of English Printing, 147 6- 1900

CHAPTER I

CAXTON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES

The art of printing had been known on the Con- tinent for over twenty years, when William Caxton, a citizen and mercer of London, introduced it into England. Caxton tells us himself that he was born in the Weald of Kent. In 1438 he was apprenticed to a well-to-do London mercer, Robert Large, who carried on business in the Old Jewry, but in 1441 his master died, leaving him a sum of twenty marks, and shortly afterwards he left England for the Low Countries. In the prologue to the Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye he tells us that, at the time he began the translation, he had been living on the Continent for thirty years, in Brabant, Flanders, Holland, and Zealand, but the city of Bruges, one of the largest centres of trade in Europe at that time, was his headquarters. Caxton prospered

' in his business, and rose to be Governor to the

English Nation at I>ruges,' a position of import- 2 English Printing ancc, and one that brought him into contact with men of high rank. In 1468 Caxton began to translate Raoul Le Fevre's Recueil des Histoircs de Troyes, but after writing a few quires was dissatisfied with his work and gave it up. Shortly after this he entered the service of Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, sister of Ed- ward IV of England, either as secretary or steward. The Duchess used to talk with him on literary matters, and he told her of his attempt to translate the Recueil. She asked him to show her what he had written, pointed out how he might amend his 'rude English,' and encouraged him to continue his work. Caxton took up the task again, and in spite of many interruptions, including journeys to both Ghent and Cologne, he completed it, in the latter city, on the 19th September 1471. All this he tells us in the prologue, and at the end of the second book he says : ' And for as moche as I suppose the said two bokes ben not had to fore this tyme in oure English langage, therefore I had the better will to accom- pli sshe this said werke, whiche werke was begonne in Brugis, and contynued in Gaunt, and finyshed in

Coleyn, . . . the yere of our lord a thousand four honderd Ixxi.' He then refers to John Lydgate's translation of the third book, and continues : ' But yet for as moche as I am bounde to con- template my fayd ladyes good grace and also that Caxton and his Contemporaries 3 his werke is in ryme, and as ferre as I knowe hit is not had in prose in our tonge . . . and also he- cause that I have now god leyzer beying in Coleyn, and have none other thing to doo at this tyme, I have,' &c.

Then at the end of the third book he saj'-s that having become weary of writing and yet having to promised copies divers gentlemen and friends : ' Therfor I have practysed and lerned at my grete charge and dispense to ordeyne this said book in prynte after the maner and forme as ye may here see,' &c.

The book when printed bore neither place of date imprint, of printing, nor name of printer. The late William Blades, in his Life of Caxton (vol. i. chap. v. pp. 45-61), maintained that this book, and all the others printed with the same type, were printed at Bruges by Colard Mansion, and that it was at Bruges, and in conjunction with that Mansion, Caxton learned the art of printing. His principal reasons for coming to this conclusion were : (i) That Caxton's stay in Cologne was only for six months, long enough for him to have finished the translation of the book, but too short a time in which to have it printed ; (2) That the type in which it was printed was Colard Mansion's; (3) That the typographical features of the books in printed this type (No. 1) jK)int to their all having come from the same printing office. On the other hand, Caxton conveys the im- 4 English Printing whilst pression that he learned to print, making the translation, in order to fulfil his promise of rather multiplying copies. That it was in Cologne than elsewhere is confirmed by the oft-quoted stanza added by Wynkyn de Worde as a colophon to the EngHsh edition of Bartholomaeus' De pro- prietatihtis rerum.

* And also of your charyte call to lemembraunce The soule of William Caxton, the first prynter of this boke, In laten tonge at Coleyn, hymself to avaunce That every well-disposyd man may theron loke.'

If any one should have known the truth about the matter, it was surely Caxton' s foreman, who almost certainly came to England with him. Mr. E. Gordon Duff, the highest authority on all matters connected with early English printing,

' referring to this verse, says : This is a perfectly clear statement that Caxton printed a Bartholomaeus in Latin at Cologne, and we know an edition of the book manifestly printed at Cologne, about the time Caxton was there. The type in which it is printed greatly resembles that of some other Cologne printers, and it seems to be connected with some of Caxton's Bruges types.' In the face of these statements, we seem bound to believe that Caxton did study printing at Cologne, but his methods of working, and his late adoption of spacing and signatures, prove that he only learnt the most elementary part of the work there. In any case it must have been with the help of Caxton and his Contemporaries 5 Colard Mansion that he set up and printed the In addition Recuyell, probably ui 1472 or 1473. to this book several others, printed in the same features in type, and having other typographical few common with it, were printed in the next years.

These were : The Game and Playe of the Chess Moralised, translated by Caxton, a small folio of 74 leaves. Le Recueil des Histoires de Troyes, a folio of 120 leaves.

Les Fais el Prouesses du noble et vaillant chevalier Jason, a folio of 134 leaves, printed, it is believed, by Mansion, after Caxton's removal to England. And, Meditacions sur les sept Psaulmes Penitcnciaidx, a folio of 34 leaves, also ascribed to Mansion's press, about the year 1478. Before Michaelmas 1476 Caxton must have left Bruges and come to England, leaving type No. i in the hands of Mansion, and bringing with him that picturesque secretary type known as type 2. This, as Mr. Blades has undoubtedly proved, had already been used by Caxton and Mansion in print- from the ing Les quatre derrcnieres choses, notable method of working the red ink, a method found in no other book of Colard Mansion's. On his arrival in England, Caxton settled in Westminster, within the precincts of the Abbey, at the sign of the Red Pale, which he rented from Michaelmas 1476, and thence, on 18th November 6 English Printing

1477, he issued The Dictcs and Sayinges of the Philo- sophers, the first dated book printed in England. This was a foHo of 76 leaves, without title-page, foliation, catchwords, or signatures, as were also the books printed in conjunction with Mansion. T3'pe 2, in which it was printed, was of the same class as the Gros Batarde type of Colard Mansion, and was in all probability cut by Mansion himself. ' ' The letters are bold and angular, the lowercase w being given prominence by large loops over the

' ' ' ' top. The h's and I's are also looped letters,

' ' ' ' the final m's and n's are finished with an angular stroke, and the only letter at all akin to ' those in type No. i is the final d,' which has the peculiar pump-handle finial seen in that fount. The Dictes and Sayinges is printed in long lines, twenty-nine to a page, with spaces left at the beginning of the chapters for the insertion of capitals. The is dated i8th November Rylands copy 1477 5 other copies have no colophon, only an Epilogue, which begins : ' Here endctli the book named the dictes or of the me sayengis | philosophers, enprynted, by William Caxton at Wcstmestre the of our lord | yere •M- I CCCC-LXXVij.' During the next twelve months the principal output of Caxton's press was an edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Talcs, a folio of 372 leaves, completed before the end of 1478. He also printed in the same type a Sarum Ordinale, known only by a Caxton and his Contemporaries 7 fragment in the British Museum, and several small quarto tracts without date, including a Latin school- book called Stans Puer ad Mcnsam ; two translations from Dionysius Cato, entitled respectively Parvus Catho and Magnus Catho ; Chaucer's poem Anelida and Arcite, and several of Lydgate's—the fable of The Chorl and the Bird, The Horse, the Shepe and the Goose, The Temple of Glas, and the Book of Courtesy. It is quite possible that some of these preceded The Dictes and Sayinges. During the first three years of Caxton's residence at Westminster he printed at least thirty books. In 1479 •h® recast type 2 (cited in its new form by Blades as type 2*), and this he continued to use until 1481. But about the same time he cast two other founts, Nos. 3 and 4. The first of these was a large black letter of Missal character, used chiefly for printing service books, but appearing in the books printed with type 2* for headings. With it he printed Cordyale, or the Four Last Things, a folio of 78 leaves, the work being a translation by Earl Rivers of Lcs Quatre Dcrrenieres Choses Advenir, first printed in type 2 in the office of Colard Mansion. A second edition of The Dictes and Say- inges was also printed in this type, while to the year 1478 or 1479 must be ascribed the Rhetorica Nova of Friar Laurence of Savona, a folio of 124 leaves, long supposed to have been printed at Cambridge. After 1479 Caxton began to space out his lines and to use signatures, customs that had been in 8 English Printing vogue on the Continent for some years before he left. In 1480 he brought the new type 4 into use. ' Although without any loop to the lowercase d,' this was modelled on type 2, but was much smaller, ' the body being most akin to modern Enghsh.' If not so striking as the earlier fount, it was a much neater letter and more adapted to the printing of Indulgences, and it was probably the arrival of John Lettou in London, and the neat look of his work, that induced Caxton to cut this fount. With this type No. 4 he printed Kendale's Indulgences and the first edition of The Chronicles of England, dated the loth June 1480, a foUo of 152 leaves. In the same year he printed with type 3 three service books. Of one of these, the Horae, only a few leaves are known. These were found by William Blades in the covers of a copy of Boethius, printed also by Caxton, which he discovered in a deplorable state from damp, in a cupboard of the St. Albans Grammar School. This was an uncut copy, in the original binding, and the covers yielded as many as fifty- six half sheets of printed matter, fragments of other books printed by Caxton. These proved the existence of three hitherto unknown examples of his press, the Horae above noted, the Ordinale, and the Indulgence of Pope Sixtus IV, the remaining fragments yielding leaves from the History of fason, in 2 the first of printed type ; edition the Chronicles, the Description of Britain ; the second edition of the Dictes and Sayinges, the De Curia Sapientiae, Caxton and his Contemporaries 9

Cicero's De Senectiite, and the Nativity of Our as Lady, printed in the recast of type 4, known type 4*. The first illustrated book issued by Caxton was The Mirror of the World, printed in 1481. In this two sets of cuts were used, one representing masters and their pupils, and the other diagrams. Two of the cuts with figures were used in another book of about this date, the third edition of Parvus and Magnus Chato. To this period also belongs The History of Rey- nard the Fox and the second edition of The Game and Play of Chess, printed with type 2*, and distinguished from the earlier edition by the eight different woodcuts specially cut for it, but by a hand to that which executed the cuts in the Mirror. Some of these were used twice over.

it on the In type 4, Caxton printed (finishing 20th November 1481) The History of Godfrey of foHo of Bologne ; or, the Conquest of ferusalem, a 144 leaves. In 1482 appeared the second edition of the Chronicles, and the compilation of Roger of Chester and Ralph Higden, called Polychronicon. This history John of Trevisa had translated into English prose, bringing it down to 1387. Caxton now added a further continuation to 1460, the only

original work ever undertaken by him. Another English author whom Caxton printed at this time was John Gower, whose Confessio A mantis in small folio (222 leaves in double columns) he finished lo English Printing on the 2nd September 1483. In this we see the first use of type 4*, the two founts being found in one instance on the same page. The first edition of the Golden Legend also belongs to 1483, being finished at Westminster on the 20th November.

This was the largest book that Caxton printed, containing 449 leaves in double columns, illustrated with eighteen large and fifty-two small woodcuts. The text was in type 4*, the headlines, &c., in

type 3. For this work Caxton received from the Earl of Arundel, to whom the book was dedicated, a promise of a buck in summer and a doe in winter. Several copies of the book still exist, its large size serving as a safeguard against complete destruction, but none are perfect, most of them being made up from copies of the second edition. The insertions may be recognised by the type of the headlines, those in the second edition being in type 5. Other books printed in type 4* were Chaucer's Book of Fame, Chaucer's Troylus, the Lyf of Our Ladye, the Life of Saint Winifred, and the History of King Arthur, this last, finished on July 31, 1485, being almost as large a book as the Golden Legend. In 1487 Caxton brought into use type 5, a smaller form of the black letter fount known as No. 3, with which he sometimes used a set of Lombardic

capitals. With this he printed, between 1487 and 1489, several important books, among them the Royal Book, a folio of 162 leaves, illustrated with six small woodcuts, the Book of Good Manners, Caxton and his Contemporaries 1 1 the first edition of the Diredorium Sacerdotum, and the Speculum Vitae Christi. During 1487 also Caxton had printed for him at Paris, by Wilham Maynyal, an edition of the Sarum Missal. This was the first book in which he used his well-known device. The second edition of the Golden Legend is believed to have been published in 1488, and to about the same time belongs the proof of an In- dulgence which Henry Bradshaw discovered in the University Library, Cambridge, and which seems to have been struck off on the nearest piece of blank paper, which happened to be the last page of a copy of the Colloquium peccatoris et Crucifixi J. C, printed at Antwerp. This was not the only remarkable find which that master of the art of

bibliography made in connection with Caxton. On a waste sheet of a copy of the Fifteen Oes, he noticed what appeared to be a set off of another book, and on closer inspection this turned out to be a page of a Book of Hours, of which no copy has ever been found. It appeared to have been and printed in type 5, was surrounded by borders, was no doubt the edition which Wynkyn de Wordc reprinted in 1494. In 1489 Caxton began to use another type known as No. 6, cast from the matrices of No. 2 and 2*, but a shade smaller, and easily distinguish-

' able by the different lowercase w.' With this he printed, on the 14th July 1489, the luiyUs of Armcs and Chivalry, and between that date and 12 English Printing his death three romances, the Foure Sons of Aymon, editions Blanchardin, and Encydos ; the second of Reynard the Fox, the Book of Courtesy, the Mirror of the World, and the Directorium Sacerdotum ; and the third edition of the Dictes and Sayinges. To the same period belong the editions of the Art and Craft to Know Well to Die, the Ars Moriendi, and the Vitas Patrum.

But in addition to type 6, which Blades believed to be the last he used, there is evidence of Caxton's having possessed two other founts during the latter part of his life. With one of them, type No. 7 (see E. G. Duff, Early English Printing), somewhat resembling types Nos. 3 and 5, he printed two editions of the Indulgence of Johannes de Gigliis in 1489, and it was also used for the sidenotes to the Speculum Vitae Christi, printed in 1494 by Wynkyn de Worde, and for some recently discovered Indulgences from the same press. Type No. 8 was also a black letter of the same character, smaller than No. 3, and distinguished from any other of Caxton's founts by the short, rounded,

' ' and tailless letter y and the set of capitals with dots. He used it in the Liber Festivalis, the Ars Moriendi, and the Fifteen Oes, the only book he printed with borders, and it was afterwards used by Wynkyn de Worde. Caxton died in the year 1491, after a long, busy, and useful life. At an age when most men begin to think of rest and quiet, he set to work to learn Caxton and his Contemporaries 13

the art of printing books. Nor was he content with this, but he devoted all his spare time to editing and translating for his press, and according to ' Wynkyn de ^^"orde it was at the laste daye of ' of his lyff that he finished the version the Lives of the Fathers \s'hich De Worde issued in 1495. His work as an editor and translator shows him

to have been fairly acquainted with the French and Dutch languages, and to have possessed a quiet sense of humour that adds to the charm of what

' ' he termed his rude English. ' Of his private hfe we know little, but the Mawde

' Caxston who figures in the churchwarden's accounts of St. Margaret's is generally believed to have been his wife. He had a daughter Elizabeth married to a merchant named Gerard Croppe, from whom she was separated in 1496. His will has not been found, the documents at Westminster Abbey, from which Dr. E. J. L. Scott has gleaned a few records relating to him, having been searched in vain. We know, however, from the parish accounts of St. Margaret's, Westminster, that he left to that church fifteen copies of a Legend (probably not the Golden Legend, but a service book printed for him by Maynyal), twelve of which were sold at prices varying between 6s. M. and 5s. ^d. Caxton used only one device, a simple square block with his initials W. C. cut upon it, and certain hieroglyphics said to stand for the figures 74, with a border at the top and bottom. It was probably 14 English Printing of English workmanship, as those found in the books of foreign printers were much more finely cut. This block, which Caxton did not begin to use until 1487, afterwards passed to his successor, who made it the basis of several elaborate variations.

Upon the death of Caxton in 149 1, his business came into the hands of his chief workman, Wynkyn de Worde. From the letters of naturalisation which this printer took out in 1496, we learn that he was a native of the Duchy of Lorraine. It was suggested by Herbert that he was one of Caxton's original workmen, and came with him to England, and this has recently been confirmed by the discovery of a document among the records at West- minster, proving that his wife rented a house from the Abbey as early as 1480. In any case there is little doubt that Wynkyn de Worde had been in intimate association with Caxton during the greater part of his career as a printer, and when Caxton died he seems to have taken over the whole business just as it stood, continuing to live at the Red Pale until 1500, and to use the types which Caxton had been using in his latest books. This fact led Blades to ascribe several books to Caxton which were probably not printed until after his death. These were The Chastising of God's Children, notable typo- graphically as being the first book printed at West- minster with a The Book title-page ; of Courtesye, and the Treatise of Love, printed with type No. 6 ; Caxton and his Contemporaries 1 5 but, in addition to these, two other books, probably in the press at the time of Caxton's death, were issued from the Westminster oihce without a printer's name, but printed in a type resembhng type 4*. These were an edition of the Golden Legend and the Life of St. Catherine of Sienna. Wynkyn de Worde's name is found for the first time in the Liber Fesiivalis printed in 1493. In the following year was issued Walter Hylton's Scala Perfectionis, and a reprint of Bonaventura's speculum Vit

' ' type No. 8, with the tailless y and the dotted his capitals. Speaking of this type in Early Printed Books, Mr. E. G. Duff points out its close resemblance to that used by the Paris printers P. Levet and Jean Higman in 1490, and argues

that it was either obtained from them or from the

type-cutter who cut their founts.^ To the year 1495 belongs the Vitas Patrum, the book of which Caxton had fmished the translation the of his death and beside there were on day ; this, reprints of the Polychronicon and the Dircctoriiim Saccrdotum. The reprint of the Boke of St. Albans, which was issued in 1496, is noticeable as being printed in the type which Dc Worde obtained from

' K. G. Duff, Early Piinlcd Books, pp. 84 and 139. i6 English Printing

Godfried van Os, the Gouda printer. This broad square-set letter is not found in any other book of De Worde's, though he continued to use a set of initial letters which he obtained from the same printer for many years. Among other books printed in 1496 were Dives and Pauper, a folio, and several quartos such as the Ahhey of the Holy Ghost, the Meditations of St. Bernard, and the Liber Festivalis. In 1497 we find the Chronicles of England, and in 1498 an edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, a second edition of the Morte d'' Arthur, and another of the Golden Legend, in fact nearly all De Worde's dated books up to 1500 were reprints of works issued by Caxton. But amongst the undated books we notice many nev/ works, such as Lidgate's Assembly of Gods and Sege of Thebes, Skelton's Bowghe of Court, The Three Kings of Cologne, and several school books. In 1499 De Worde printed the Liber Eqtuvocorum of Joannes de Garlandia, using for it a very small black letter making nine and a half lines to the inch, probably obtained from Paris. This type was generally kept for scholastic books, and in addition to the book above noted, Wynkyn de

Worde printed with it, in the same year or the year following, an Ortus Vocabulorum. From the time when he succeeded to Caxton's business down to the year 1500, in which he left Westminster and settled in Fleet Street, De Worde printed at least a hundred books, the bulk of them undated. Caxton and his Contemporaries 17

Several printers from the Low Countries came to England soon after Caxton. The year after he settled at Westminster, a book was printed at Ox- ford without printer's name, and with a misprint in the date, which has caused much discussion. This was the Exposicio sandi Jeronimi in simbolum

' apostoloriun, and the colophon ran, Impressa Oxonie et finita anno domini M.cccc.lxviij., xvij. die decembris,' a wholly improbable date now in- terpreted as a misprint for 1478. The dropping

' of an ' x from the date of a colophon is not an uncommon printer's error, and the Exposicio has been found bound with two other Oxford books, the De peccato originali of Aegidius de Columna, and a Latin translation of the Ethics of Aristotle, both dated 1479, ^^<^ both showing the same typographical features as the Exposicio. Moreover, the type in which they are printed was used at Cologne, in ij 77 and 1478, by a printer named

Gerard ten Racm, one of whose books printed with it, the Modus Confitcndi, was finished on 20th October, or only eight weeks before the appearance of the Exposicio at Oxford. This Modus Confitejidi has in common with the Exposicio a curious misuse of a capital H for a capital P. There is thus no room for doubt that the printer of the first three Oxford books obtained his type from Cologne, and was therefore presumably the Theodoric Rood of that city whose name first appears in the commentary on the De Anima of Aristotle, printed at Oxford B 1 8 English Printing

in 1481. This was followed in 1482 by an exposition on the Lamentations of Jeremiah, by John Lattebury, and some copies of these two books are distinguished by a woodcut border printed round the first page of the text, the first occurrence of a border in an English book. About 1483 Rood took as a partner Thomas Hunt, a stationer of Oxford, and together they issued John Anwykyll's Latin Grammar, together with the Vulgaria Terencii, Richard Rolle of Hampole's Explanationes super lectiones heati Job, a sermon of Augustine's, of which the only known copy is in the British Museum, a collection of treatises upon logic, one of which is by Roger Swyneshede, the first edition of Lyndewode's Pro- vincial Constitutions (a large folio of 366 leaves with a woodcut, the earliest example found in any Oxford book), and the Epistles of Phalaris, with a lengthy colophon in Latin verse. The last book to appear from the press was the Liber Festivalis by John J\Iirk, a folio of 174 leaves, containing eleven large woodcuts and five smaller ones, apparently meant for an edition of the Golden Legend, as they were cut down to fit the Festival. After the appearance of this book, printing at Oxford suddenly ceased. Altogether the Oxford press lasted for eight years, and sixteen books or fragments of books remain to testify to its activity. In these, seven founts of type were used, the first two having all the characteristics of the Cologne printers, while Caxton and his Contemporaries 19 the third has a more EngHsh look and included a lowercase ' w.' Eight books are known, which are believed to have been printed at a press in the town of St. Albans in Hertfordshire in the fifteenth century. The printer is unknown, but was referred to by Wynkyn de Worde as ' somtyme scole master of saynt Albons.' His first production was a work by Augustinus Datus called Super elcganciis Tullianis. It was printed in a very small and clear Gothic type, apparently modelled on one of Caxton's. The work bore no date, and its short colophon simply records that it was printed

' apud Sanctum Albanum.' The absence of signatures proves it to have preceded the other productions of this press, and the date assigned to it is the year 1479. The first dated book from this press was the Rhctorica Nova of Laurentius de Saona, printed in 1480. In this another fount of type was used, the hrst only occurring again in signatures. This second type has also a great resemblance to Caxton's type 2*. In the same year the printer also produced the Libey modorum Significandi, in a third type which has been

' rightly termed the ugliest and most confusing of English hfteenth-century types and full of be- wildering contractions.'

The most notable books from this j)ress were the Chronicles of England, in which red ink was used in printing the initials and paragraj)h marks, 20 English Printing

and at the end it has the printer's device, a double

cross rising from a circle in which is a shield bearing the arms of the town and abbey of St. Albans. The last book from tliis press is known as the Book of St. Albans, in which heraldry, hawking, and fishing are successively dealt with. This book and the Chronicles were printed in two types, one that already used in the Rhetorica Nova, with a larger fount for headings which is admitted to have been Caxton's type 3. At the

' end is the simple imprint Sanctus Albanus,' but

' ' at the end of the treatise of blasyng of armys it is stated to have been compiled at St. Albans in the year i486.

Within recent years Dr. E. J. L. Scott has found mention amongst the archives at V*''estminster of a manor called Saint Albans, in which there lived a schoolmaster called Otto Fuller, but there is no evidence at present of this schoolmaster having ever had any communication with Caxton, and failing this we must continue to ascribe these books to an unknown printer at St. Albans in Hertford- shire.

Three years after Caxton had settled at West- minster, viz. in 1480, an Indulgence was issued by John Kcndale, asking for aid against the Turks.

Caxton printed some copies of tliis, and others are found in a small neat type, and are ascribed to the press of John Lettou, who had recently started printing in London. Lettou is an old form of Caxton and his Contemporaries 2 i Lithuania, but whether John Lettou came from Lithuania is not known.

In this same year, 1480, Lettou printed the Quaesliones Anionii Andreae super duodecim libros metaphysicae Aristotclis, a small folio of 106 leaves in double columns, of which only one perfect copy is known, that in the Library of Sion College, The type is small and remarkable from its numerous abbreviations. Mr. E. G. Duff, in his Early English

' Printing, writes : There are very strong reasons for believing that he [Lettou] is the same person as the Johannes Bremer, alias Bulle, who is mentioned by Hain as having printed two books at Rome in 1478 and 1479. The type which this printer used is identical (with the exception of one of the capital letters) with that used in the books printed by John Lettou in London.' Another book that came from this press in the year 1480 was the Expositiones super Psalterium, printed in the same type. A few years later Lettou was joined by William de Machlinia. They were chiefly associated in printing law-books, but whether they had any patent from the king cannot be discovered. Only one of the five books they are known to have printed, the Tenures Novelli, has any colophon, and none of lh

' address they gave was jiixta ccclesiam omnium 22 English Printing sanctorum,' but as there were several churches so dedicated, the locahty cannot be hxed. The type in which these books were printed is also found in The History of the Siege of Rhodes, dedicated to Edward IV^ the only early English printed book the printer of which is unknown, there being difficulties in ascribing it either to Lettou or Machlinia. About 1482-3 Machlinia is found working alone, but out of the twenty-two books or editions that have been traced to his press, only four contain his name, and none have a date. All we can say is ' ' that he printed from two addresses, in Holborn

' and By Flete-brigge.' Mr. Duff inclines to the ' ' opinion that Flete-brigge is tlie earlier, but it seems almost hopeless to attempt to place these books in any chronological order from their typographical peculiarities. In the Flete-brigge type arc two books by Albertus Magnus, the Liber aggregationis and the De Secretis Mulierum. The type is of a black letter character, not unlike that in which the Nova Statuta were printed, and is distinguishable by the peculiar shape of the capital M. In the same type we find the Revelation of St. Nicholas to a Monk of Evesham, a reprint of the Tenores Novelli, and some fragments of a Horae found in old a Sarum bindings ; woodcut border was used in some parts of it. Besides these Machlinia printed an edition of the Vulgaria Terentii. Caxton and his Contemporaries 23

Fourteen books are found in the Holborn types, the most important being the Chronicles of E^igland, of which only one perfect copy is known. The Speculum Christiani is interesting as containing specimens of early poetry, and The Treatise on the Pestilence, of Kanutus or Canutus, bishop of Aarhus, ran to three editions, one of which contains a title-page, and was therefore presumably printed late in Machlinia's career, i.e. about 1490. In addition to these, there were three law-books, the Statutes of Richard III, and several theological and scholastic works. One of the founts of type used by Machlinia is of peculiar interest, by reason of its close resemblance to Caxton's type No. 2*, and its still greater similarity to the type used by Jean Brito of Bruges. Machlinia's business seems to have been taken over by Richard Pynson. There is no direct evidence of this, but Pynson is found using woodcut borders and blocks used by Machlinia, while waste from Machlinia books has been found in bindings by Pynson. Richard Pynson, who was a native of Normandy, may have learnt to print in the office of Le Tallcur, a printer of Rouen with whom he had business relations. His methods were those of Rouen rather than of any English master, and he was the finest printer this country had yet seen, and no one, until the appearance of John Day, approached him in excellence of work. 24 English Printing A good deal of new information has come to light within recent years concerning Richard Pynson. His career was marked by many changes of fortune. He was the object of jealousy and he suspicion on the part of native workmen, and was involved in many lawsuits. His first dated book was the Doctrinale of Alex- ander Gallus, a quarto, finished on the 13th November 1492, the only known copy of which is now in the British Museum but several books had been ; printed by Pynson before this, notably a fine edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in foHo, in which two founts of type are seen, a bold unevenly cast fount of black letter, somewhat resembling that used by MachHnia at Flete Bridge, and a fount of small sloping Gothic. The work was illustrated with woodcuts representing the various pilgrims. ' In 1493 Pynson printed for a certain John Russhe, Esquire,' The Dialogue of Dives and Pauper with a new type, distinguishable by the sharp

' angular finish to the letter h.' Pynson's relations with John Russhe formed the subject of a lawsuit, and we learn from the documents put in in the course of the case that 600 copies of this book were printed, half of which were sold to Russhe, printed and bound, at four shillings each. In addition to this book, several quartos, without date, were printed in the same type. An edition of Mirk's Liber Festivalis was another Caxton and his Contemporaries 25 book which John Russhe commissioned Pynson to with the earher print for him, and in 1494 he printed, from types of the Chaucer, Lidgate's translation Boccaccio The Falle of Princes, also at the bidding of John Russhe, each edition consisting of 600 certain Mass- copies. Mention is also made of ' of which books, Jornalles,' and Prymers, no copies with Pynson's name of so early a date have ever yet been found, and these were probably printed abroad. 1

Two other printers were at work before the close of the fifteenth century. JuHan Notary, whose nationality is not clear, and Jean Barbier, of his name who in spite of the French rendering is believed to have been an Englishman, as on the

' Plea Rolls he is described as Johannes Barbour, nuper de Coventre, here brewer, ahas dictus Jehanne Bcrbier, nuper de Coventre, prenter.' With them was associated a third partner, whose initials J. H. of are beheved to be those of J. Huvin, a printer Rouen. They established themselves in London at the sign of St. Thomas the Apostle, and their first book was the Qucstiones Alberti dc modis significandi, which they followed up in 1497 ^^i^h an octavo edition of the florae ad usum Sarnm. In

1498 Barbier and Notary removed to King Street, Westminster, where they printed in folio for Wynkyn de Worde a Missalc ad tisum Sarum,

' For a full account of Pynson's dealings with John Russhe, sec 7 he Library (New .Scries), April 1909. 26 English Printing the first edition printed in England. Soon afterwards Notary was printing by himself, the initials of both his partners being removed from his device. Two quartos, the Liber Fcstivalis and Quattuor Sermones, are all that can be traced to his press in 1499, and a miniature Horae, less than two inches in height, being the sole record of his work in 1500. Notary was also a bookbinder, and some of his stamped bindings are still met with. CHAPTER II

FROM 150 1 TO THE DEATH OF WYNKYN DE WORDE

In the year 1500 Wynkyn dc Worde moved from Westminster to the ' Sunne ' in Fleet Street. The change brought him nearer the heart of the book- for selling trade, which was then, and many years after, seated in St. Paul's Churchyard and Fleet Street. He appears to have discarded much of his printing material at this time, but carried with him the black letter type with which he had printed the Liber Festivalis in 1496, and continued to use it until 1508 or 1509, when he seems to have sold it to a printer in York, Hugo Goes. He brought with him also the scholastic type in use in 1499. Besides these, we find two other founts of black letter. The larger of the two seems to have been introduced about 1503, to print a Sarum Horae. The smaller fount came into use a few years later. It was somewhat larger in body, less angular, and much more English in character than that which the printer had brought with him from West- minster, and the bulk of his books to the day of his death were printed with these types. They were doubtless recast from time to time, but a 27 2 8 English Printing close examination fails to detect any difference in size or form during the whole period. De Worde first began to use Roman type in 1520 for his scholastic books, but he made no general letter use of it, remaining faithful to English black to the end of his days. The only exceptions are the educational books, which he invariably printed, as in fact did all the other printers of the period, in a miniature fount of Gothic of a kind very popular on the Continent in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. De Worde's, however, was an excep- tionally small fount. In 15 13 he procured another fount of this type, in which he printed the Flowers of Ovid, quarto, and in this the letters are of English character, as may be seen particularly in the lower-

' case h.' This fount, which was slightly larger, he does not seem to have used very frequently. As JuHan Notary printed the Sermones Discipuli in 1 5 10, in the same type, it may have been lent by one printer to the other. In or about 1533 De Worde introduced the italic letter into some of his scholastic books, and in Colet's Grammar, which was amongst the last books he printed, we find it in combination with English black letter, the small ' grammar type,' and Roman. In these various types, between the beginning of the century and his death in 1534, Wynkyn de Worde printed upwards of five hundred books which have come down to us, complete or in fragments. Thanks to the indefatigable energy of Mr. Wynkyn de Worde 29

Gordon Duff, we possess now a very full record of his books, enabling us not only to estimate his merit as a printer, but to see at a glance how consistently as a publisher he maintained the entirely popular character which Caxton had given to his press. As regards large folios, he confined himself almost entirely to those in which his master had led the way, such as the Golden Legend, of which he issued several editions, the Speculum Vitae Christi, the Morte d"Arthur, Canterbury Tales, Polychronicon, and Chronicles of England. The Vitas Patrum of 1495 he could hardly help printing, as Caxton had laboured on its translation in the last year of his also life, and it may have been respect for Caxton which led to the publication of his fmest book, the really splendid edition of Bartholomaeus' Dc Pro- the prietatihus Rcriim, issued towards the close of fifteenth century, from the colophon of which I have already quoted the lines referring to Caxton's having worked at a Latin edition of it at Cologne. The Book of St. Albans was another reprint to which the probable connection of the Westminster and a Caxton flavour and when St. Albans presses gave ; we have enumerated these and the Dives and Pauper, produced apparently out of rivalry with Pynson in 1496, and a few devotional books such as the Orcharde of Syon and the Flour of the Command- ments of God, to which this form was given, very few Wynkyn de Worde folios remain unmentioned. But to one book in folio, Wynkyn dc Worde 30 English Printing

printed some five-and-twenty in quarto, eschewing as a rule smaller forms, though now and again we find a Horae, or a Manipulus Curatorum, or a Book of Good Manners for Children in eights or twelves.^ Students of our older literature owe him gratitude for having preserved in their later forms many old romances, and also a few plays, and he published every class of book, including many educational works, for which a ready sale was assured. The majority of these books were illustrated, if only with a cut on the title-page of a schoolmaster with a birch-rod, or a knight on horseback who did duty for many heroes in succession. When the illustrations were more profuse, they were too often produced from worn blocks, purchased from French

publishers, or rudely copied from French originals, and used again and again without a thought as to their relevance to the text. A similar carelessness is often found in his composition and presswork. There was no originality about Wynkyn de Worde's devices, of which he used no fewer than sixteen different varieties. The most familiar, as it was the earliest of these, was Caxton's, and next to this must be placed what is usually described as the Sagittarius device. There were two forms of this, a square and an oblong. It consisted of three divisions, the upper part containing the sun, two

^ It is rather remarkable that of the eight books dated 1534 six are in octavo. Readers of the works of Erasmus, Colet, and Lily seem to have shown a preference for this form, which is used most frequently for the works of these friendly authors. Wynkyn de Worde 31

planets, and eleven stars on the left and nine to the initials and the the Caxton mark and ; right ; centre, the lower part, a ribbon with his name, with a dog on one side and an archer on the other. There are no less than six variations of this block. Its first appearance is in a copy of the Manipulus Cura- torum printed in 1502, where it appears showing thirty-six stars instead of twenty in the upper panel, and having the initial C in the centre panel printed the wrong way about. This is the only known example of its use. In 1504 a new block was cut, and appears first in the Grammar of vSulpicius. This was replaced in 15 19 and again in 1528, this fourth block being distinguished by having only ten small stars to the left of the sun and ten to the right. In another variation, not often used, the moon takes the place of one of the planets, and there are sixteen there is a smaller form stars ; and lastly slightly of the 1504 block, probably made abroad, as its use is confined to books printed in Paris for Wynkyn dc Worde. Wynkyn de Worde died in 153^, his will being proved on the 19th January 1535. His executors were John Byddell, who succeeded to his business, and James Gaver, while three other London stationers, Henry Pepwell, Jolin (iough, and Robert Copland, were made overseers of it, and received legacies. Julian Notary remained at Westminster two years after the departure of Wynkyn dc Worde, 32 English Printing when he too flitted eastwards, settling at the sign of the Three Kings without Temple Bar, probably to be nearer his patron. He combined with his trade of printer that of bookbinder, and probably bound as well as printed many books for Wynkyn de Worde. His printing lay principally in the direction of service books for the church, but he printed both the Golden Legend and the Chronicles of England in foHo, one or two lives of saints, and a few ' small tracts of lighter vem, such as How John

' Splynter made his testament,' and How a serjeaunt wolde lerne to be a frere,' both in quarto without date. In the Golden Legend of 1504 and the Chronicles of England of 15 15, the black letter type used was identical in character with that of Wynkyn de Worde. No book has been found printed by Notary between the years 1510 and 1515. In the former year he appears to have had a house in St. Paul's Church- yard, as well as the Three Kings without Temple Bar. In 1515 he speaks only of the sign of St. Mark in St. Paul's Churchyard, and three years later this is altered to the sign of the Three Kings. It is just conceivable that this last was a misprint, or that the St. Mark was a temporary office used only while the Three Kings was under repair. In 1507 Notary exchanged the simple merchant's mark that had hitherto served him as a device for one of a more elaborate character. This took the Wynkyn de Worde 33 form of a helmet over a shield with his mark upon it, with decorative border, and below all his name. From this a still larger block was made in the same year, and this was strongly French in character. It showed the smaller block affixed to a tree with bird and flowers all round it, and two fabulous creatures on either side of the base. The initials

' J. N.' are seen at the top. This he sometimes used as a frontispiece, substituting for the centre piece a block of a different character. Richard Pynson also changed his address shortly after Wynkyn de Worde, moving from outside Temple Bar to the George in Fleet Street, next to St. Dunstan's Church. He also appears about this time to have entirely given up the use of his striking Gothic type in favour of a much less effective English black letter. With regard to this latter, there seems reason to beheve, from the great similarity both in size and form of the fount in use by De Worde, Notary, and Pynson at this time, that it was obtained by all the printers from one common foundry. Nor is it only the letters which lead to this conclusion, but the common use of the same ornaments. The only difference between the black letter in use by Pynson in the first years of the sixteenth century and that of his contemporaries, is the occurrence of a lower-case ' w ' of a different fount. The first dated book issued by Pynson from his new address was the Directorium Sacerdolum,

' printed in 1501, intra barram novi tcmpli.' 34 English Printing In 1509 Pynson is believed to have introduced Roman type into England, using it with his scholastic type to print the Scrmo Fratris Hiero- nymi dc Fcnaria. In the same year he also issued a very fine edition of Alexander Barclay's translation of Brandt's Shyp of Folys of the Worlde. In this, the Latin original and the Enghsh translation are set side by side. The book was printed in folio in two founts, one of Roman and one of black letter. It was profusely illustrated with woodcuts copied from those in the German edition. Pynson became the royal printer in the place of W. Faques, who died in May 1508. At first he received a salary of 40s. per annum (see Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, vol. i. p. 364), but this was afterwards increased to £4 per annum {ibid., vol. ii. of p. 875). As royal printer he printed numbers Proclamations, numerous Year-books, and all the Statutes, and received large sums of money. In 15 13 he printed The Sege and Dystrucyon of Troye, of which several copies (some of them on vellum) are still in existence. Other books of which he

printed copies on vellum are the Sarum Missal of 1520, and Assertio Septem Sacramentorwn of 1521. Besides his official work, Pynson found time to print good books in all classes of Hterature. The works of Chaucer and Skelton and Lydgate, the the Chronicle of St. Albans history of Froissart and ; books such as Aesop'' s Fables and Reynard the Fox, romances such as Sir Bevis of Hampton are scattered Wynkyn de Worde 35 freely amongst works of a more solid character. On the whole he seems to deserve a higher place than De Worde. It is rare, indeed, to find a carelessly printed book of Pynson's, whilst such books as the Boccacio of 1494, the Missal printed in 1500 at the expense of Cardinal Morton, and knovvTi as the Morton Missal, and the Intrationum excellentissimus of 15 10 were certainly the finest specimens of typographical art which had been produced in this country. Pynson's earliest device consisted of his initials cut on wood. In 1496 he used two new forms. One shows his initials upon a shield surmounted by a helmet with a bird above it. Beneath is his name upon a ribbon, and the whole is enclosed in a border of animals, birds, and flowers. The other was a metal block of the same device, with two

naked figures as supporters. The border, which was separate and in one piece, had crowned figures in it and a ribbon. The bottom portion of this border began to give way about 1500, was very much out of shape in 1503, and finally broke entirely in 15 13. This border was sometimes placed the wrong way up, as in the British Museum copy of Mcmdcville's Ways io Jerusalem (G. 6713). It was succeeded by a woodcut block of a much in the larger form, which may be seen Mirroure of

Good Manners (s.a., fol.). It has no border, the initials print black on a white ground, while the

figures have a much better pose. 36 English Printing

Pynson died in the year 1530, while passing through the press VEclaircisse^nent de la Langue Francoyse, which was finished by John Hawkins, of whom nothing else is definitely known. His will, proved on the 18th February, 1529-30, mentions " his son Richard Pynson, late deceased," and nominates his daughter Margaret his executrix. Whilst these three printers had been at work, many other stationers, booksellers, and printers had settled in London. They seem to have favoured St. Paul's and Fleet Street Churchyard ; but they were also scattered over various parts of the city and outl3dng districts, even as far west as the village of Charing. In the year 1504, a printer named WilHam Faques settled in Abchurch Lane. He was a Norman by birth, and Ames suggested that he learnt his art with John Le Bourgeois at Rouen, but this is un- confirmed. He styled himself the king's printer. Of his books only some eight are in existence, three with the date 1504, and the remainder undated. His workmanship was excellent. The Psalterium which he printed in octavo was in a large, well-cut English black letter, and each page was surrounded by a chain border. The Statutes of Henry VH are also in the same type with the same ornament, but the Omelia of Origen, one of the undated books, is in the small foreign letter so much in vogue with the printers of this time. His device has the double merit of beauty and originality. It con- Wynkyn de Worde 37 sisted of two triangles intersected with his initials

' ' in the centre and the word Guillam beneath. His subsequent career is totally unknown, but he appears to have died in 1508, and was succeeded as king's printer by Pynson. His type, ornaments, &c., passed into the hands of Richard Fawkes or Faques, who printed at the sign of the Maiden's Head, in St. Paul's Churchyard, in the year 1509, Gulielmus de Saliceto's Salus corporis Salus anime, in folio, with the same type and chain ornament found in the Psalterium of William Faques. In 1523 he printed Skelton's Goodly Garland in quarto, in three founts of black letter, and a fount of Roman, and a great primer for titles. Amongst his undated works is a copy of the Liber Festivalis, believed to have been printed in 15 10, and an Horae ad usum Sarum printed for him in Paris by J. Bignon. During the interval he had moved from the Maiden's Head in St. Paul's Churchyard to another house in the

same locality, with the sign of the A. B. C, and he also had a second printing office in Durham Rentes, without Temple Bar, that is in some house adjacent to Durham House in the Strand. The earliest extant printed ballad was issued by Richard Faques, the Ballad of the Scottish King, of which the only known copy is in the British Museum, and amongst his undated books is one which he printed for Robert Wyer, the Charing Cross printer, under the title of De Ctirsione Lunae. It was printed with the Gothic type, and the blocks were supplied by 38 English Printing

Wyer. Richard Faqiics' device was a copy of that of the Paris bookseller Thiclmann Kerver, with an arrow substituted for the tree, and the design on the shield altered. The custom of adapt- ing foreign devices was very common, and is one of the many evidences of dearth of originaHty on the part of the early English printers. The latest date found in the books of this printer is 1530. Another prominent figure in the early years of the sixteenth century was that of Robert Cop- land. He was a man of considerable ability, a good French scholar, and a writer of mediocre verse. He was also, in the truest sense of the word, a book lover, and used his influence to produce books that were likely to be useful, or such as were worth reading. In the prologue to the Kalendar of Shepherdes, which Wynkyn de Worde printed in 1508, Copland described himself as servant to that printer. This has been taken to mean that he was one of De Worde's apprentices. But in 15 14, if not earlier, he had started in business for himself as a stationer and printer, at the sign of the Rose Garland in Fleet Street. Very few of the books that he printed now exist, and this, taken in conjunction with the fact that he translated and wrote prologues for so many books printed by De Worde, has caused conjectures as to their relationship. In the British Museum copy of the Dyeynge Wynkyn de Worde 39

Creature, printed by De Worde in 15 14, it is noticeable that on the last leaf is the mark or device of

Robert Copland, not that of the printer, while in the copy now in the University Library, Cambridge, De Worde's device is on the last leaf. This would indicate that, though the work actually passed through De Worde's press, both printers were associated in the venture, and that those copies which Copland took and paid for were distinguished by his device. Again, in several books with De Worde's colophons Copland speaks of himself as

' ' the printer,' or the buke printer,' and a possible inference is that these were reprints of books which Copland had previously printed, though the words may also mean that Copland superintended their printing for Wynkyn de Worde. We have a still stronger case in the Castell of Pleasure, printed in 15 18 by Henry Pepwell at the sign of the Trinity. The prologue to this takes the form of a dialogue in verse between Copland and the author, of which

the following lines arc the most important :

' Eniprynt this boke, Copland, at my request And put it fortli to every maner state.'

To which Copland replies :

'At your instaunce I shall it gladly impressc, But the utterance, I thynke, will be but small,

liokes be not set : there is I by tymes past, gesse ; The dyse and cardes, in drynkynge wyne and ale, Tables, cayles, and balles, they be now settc a sale. Men letc theyr chyldren use all such harlotry, That byenge of bokes they utterly deny.' 40 English Printing

This surely points to Robert Copland having printed an edition of the book on his own responsi- bihty and not for a master. Amongst other books that he was in some way interested in may be noticed a curious one by Alexander Barclay, Of the Introductory to write French, fol., 1521, of which there is a in the Bodleian The copy ; Mirrour of the Church, ^to, 521, a devotional work, printed by Wynkyn de Worde, with a variety of curious woodcuts the Rtitter the ; of Sea, the first Enghsh book on navigation, translated from Le Grand Ronticr of Pierre Garcie Chaucer's ; Assemble of Foules and the Questionary of Cyrurgyens, printed by Robert Wyer in 1541. Copland was also the author, and without doubt the printer, of two humorous poems that are amongst the earliest known specimens of this kind of writing. The one called The Hye Way to the Spyttell hous took the form of a dialogue between Copland and the porter of St. Bartholomew's, and turns upon the various kinds of beggars and impostors, with a running commentary upon the vices and follies that men to bring poverty, fyll of Brentford, the second of these compositions, is a somewhat different production. It recounts the legacies left a by certain lady, but the humour, though to the taste of the times, was excessively broad. In Dr. 1542 Andrew Borde spoke of his Intro- duction ' of Knowledge as printing at old Robert Copland's, the eldest printer in England.' Whether Wynkyn de Worde 41 he meant the oldest in point of age or in his craft is not clear but it well be that, that ; may seeing De Worde, Pynson, and the two Faques were dead, this printing house was the oldest then in London. John Rastell also began to print about the year educated at 15 14. He is beUeved to have been Oxford, and was trained for the law. In addition to his legal business, he translated and compiled many law-books, the most notable being the Great Abridgement of the Statutes. This book he published himself, and it is certainly one of the finest examples of sixteenth century printing to be found. The work was divided into three parts, each of which consisted of more than two hundred large folio pages. The type was the small secretary in use at Rouen, and it is just possible the book was printed there and not in England. John Rastell's first printing ofhce in London was on the south side of St. Paul's Churchyard. William Bonham, the stationer with whom Rastell was afterwards associated, had some premises there, and as late as the seventeenth century there was a house in Sermon Lane, known as the Mermaid, and it may be that in one or other of these Rastell printed the undated edition of Linacrc's Grammar, ' which bears the address ye sowth side of paulys.'

' But in 1520 he moved to the Mcrmayd at Powlys gate next to chcpe syde.' There he printed The Pastyme of the People, and Sir Thomas More's Suf- plicacyon of Souls, besides several interludes and 42 English Printing two remarkable jest-books, The Twelve mery gestys of one called Edith and A Hundred Mery Talys. The last named became one of the most popular books of the time, but only one perfect copy of it is now known, and that, alas ! is not in this country. Rastell was brother-in-law of Sir Thomas More, and until 1530 a zealous Roman Catholic. In that year he wrote and printed a defence of the Roman Catholic doctrine of Purgatory, under the title of the New Boke of Purgatory. This was answered by John Frith, the Reformer, who is credited with having achieved John Rastell's conversion. He was arrested for his opinions, and was in prison just before his death in 1536. During the last sixteen years of his life he does not appear to have paid much attention to his printing business. A document now in the Record Office shows that he was in the habit of locking up his printing office in Cheapside, and going down into the country for months at a time. But a part of the premises he sublet, and these were occupied for various periods by several stationers—William Bonham, Thomas Kele, John Heron, and John Gough being particularly named. Like all his predecessors, Rastell dropped the use of the secretary type in favour of black letter, and his books, as specimens of printing, greatly deteriorated. Dibdin, in his reprmt of The Pastyme of the People, was very severe upon the careless manner in which it was printed. Probably Rastell left it to his journey- Wynkyn de Worde 43 men or apprentices. Among those whom he employed we find the names of WilUam Mayhewes, of is known Leonard whom nothing ; Andrewe, who may have been a relative of Laurence Andrewe, another and one a Norman. English printer ; Guerin, John Rastell left two sons, William and John. The fonner became a printer during his father's lifetime and succeeded him in business, but his work lies outside the scope of the present chapter. The same remark applies to William Bonham. In 15 18 Henry Pepwell settled at the sign of the Trinity in St. Paul's Churchyard, and used the device previously belonging to Jacobi and Pelgrim, two stationers who imported books printed by Wolfgang Hopyl. His books fall into two classes—those printed between 1518-1523, and those between 1531-1539. The first were printed entirely in a black-letter fount that appears to have belonged to Pynson. The second series were printed entirely in Roman letter. A copy of his earliest book, the Castle of Pleasure, 4to, 15 18, is in the British Museum, as well as the Dietary of Ghostly

Hcthe, 4to, 1521 ; Exornatorium Cnratorum, 4to, n.d. I)u Castel's His ; Citye of Ladyes, 4to, 1521. edition of Christiani hominis Institutiini, 4to, 1520, is only known from a fragment in the Bodleian. Several books have been ascribed wrongly to this printer (Duff, Btbliographica, vol. i. pp. 93, 175, 499)- John Gougli began his career as a bookseller in 44 English Printing

Fleet Street in 1526. In 1528 he was suspected of dealing in prohibited books (see Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, vol. iv. pt. ii. art. 4004), but managed to clear himself. In 1532 he moved

' ' to the Memiaid in Cheapside, and in the same year Wynkyn de Worde printed two books for him concerning the coronation of Anne Boleyn. In 1536, whilst still at the Mermaid, he issued a very creditable Salisbury Primer. He calls himself the printer of this, but it is doubtful if this means anything more than that he found the money, and, perhaps, the material with which it was printed. Wynkyn de Worde appointed John Gough one of the overseers of his will. Of his subsequent career more will be said at a later period. Another of the printers who worked for Wynkyn de Worde during the latter part of his life was John Skot. In 1521, when we first meet with him, he was living in St. Sepulchre's parish, without Newgate. In that year he printed the Body of Policie and the fusiyces of Peas, and in 1522 The Myrrour of Gold ; amongst his undated books are, Jacob and his xii sotis, Carta Feodi simplicis, and the Book of Maid Emlyn, all these being in quarto. His next dated book appeared in 1528, with the

' colophon in Paule's Churchyard,' and here he appears to have remained for some years. He is next found in Fauster Lane, St. Leonard's parish, where he printed, amongst other books, the ballad Wynkyn de Worde 45 of The Nut Browne Maid. He also appears to have been at George Alley Gate, St. Botolph's parish, where he printed, but without date, Stan- bridge's Accidence. His devices were three in number, and several of his border pieces were obtained from Wynkyn de Worde. Richard Bankes began business at the long shop in the Poultry, next to St. Mildred's Church, and six doors from the Stockes or Stocks Market, which at that time stood on the present site of the Mansion House. In 1523 he printed a very curious tract with

the following title :

' Here begynneth a lytell ncwe treatyse or mater intytuled and called The ix. Drunkardes, which

tratythe of dyuerse and goodly storyes ryght ple- saunte and frutefull for all parsones to pastyme with.'

It was printed in octavo, black letter, and the only known copy is in the Douce collection at the Bodleian. Another equally rare piece of Bankes' printing was the old English romance of Sir Egla- mour, known only by a fragment of four leaves in the possession of Mr. Jenkinson of the University Library, Cambridge. This was also somewhat roughly printed in black letter. In 1525 he printed a medical tract called the Seynge of Uryns, in quarto, and three years later was associated with Robert Copland in the production of the Ruttcr of the Sea. He also issued from this address A Hcrhall, and another popular medical work called the Treasure of 46 English Printing

Pore Men. In 1539 Bankcs moved to the White Hart in Fleet Street, where his principal work consisted in printing the writings of Richard Taverner, the Reformer. In 1540 he was arrested for printing certain ballads about the late Thomas Cromwell which bore his but he declared he had not imprint ; printed them, but that they came from the presses of Robert Redman and Richard Grafton, the latter of whom confessed his share in the transaction. Mr,

' Duff in commenting on this incident says, This account shows that the colophons of the early printers, especially in the case of small fugitive pieces, are not to be impHcitly trusted, and empha- sizes the necessity of a careful study of type.'

—Sandars Lectures, 1899, 1904, p. 155. Peter Treveris, or Peter of Treves, was working at the sign of the Wodows, in Southwark, between the years 1521 and 1533. He used as his device the

' wild men,' first seen in the device of the Paris printer, P. Pigouchet. The fact of his printing the

' Opiisculinn Insolubilium, to be sold at Oxford apud J. T.,' that is probably for John Thome the bookseller, points to his being at work about the year 1520. In 152 1 he is believed to have issued an edition of Arnold's Chronicles, translated by Lau- rence Andrewe. Two other books of his printing were the Handy Worke of Surgery, in folio, 1525, a book notable for the many anatomical diagrams with which it was illustrated, and as a companion to that work, The Great Herball. Treveris also shared Wynkyn de Worde 47 with Wynkyn de Worde most of the printing of Richard WTiittington's scholastic works, all in quarto, and mostly without date. Laurence Andrewe, who lived for some years at Calais, and translated several books for John van Doesborch, the Antwerp printer, set up a press in Fleet Street about 1527, in which year he printed two editions of The destillacyon of Waters. A second edition of the Handy Worke of Surgery, above noticed, a tract called The Debate and Strife betwene Somer and Winter, to be sold by Robert Wyer at Charing Cross, and a reprint of Caxton's edition of the Mirroure of the Worlde, in folio, form the bulk of his work. His printing calls for no

special notice, but Mr. Proctor, in his monograph on Doesborch, surmises that he learnt his art in an English printing house rather than abroad, and the presence of a Leonardo Andrewe in the service of John Rastell may mean that the two men were re- lated and were both pupils of the same master.

' Turnhig now westwards, we find in the Bishop of Norwiche's Rentes in the felde bcsyde Charyngc Cross,' that is near the present Villiers Street, a printer named Robert Wyer, the sign of whose house was a device of St. John the Evangelist. There are several early references to the house as that of a bookseller, but without any name mentioned. The dialogue of Solomon and Marcolphus was printed by Richard Pynson, without date, to be sold at the sign of St. John the Evangelist beside ^.S English Printing Cross as were also the Debate between Charing ; Somcr and Winter, printed by Laurence Andrewe, and the De Cursione Ltme, from the press of Richard Faques. As Wyer's name occurs in the Subsidy Roll of the year 1523 in the parish of St. Martin's in the Field, these books were evidently printed for him. His first dated book was the Golden Pystle, printed in 1531. It was printed in a small secretary of Parisian character. His great primer, for which he has been especially noted by some bibliographers, was very probably that used by Richard Faques, He had also a number of woodcut face initials similar to those used by Wynkyn de Worde, and many of the small blocks found in his books were copies of those belonging to Antoine Verard, the famous Paris pubHshcr. Robert Wyer was essentially a popular printer. Many of his publications, mostly undated, were tracts of a few leaves, abridgments of larger works, chiefly on theology and medicine. Like his contemporaries he abandoned the secretary type in favour of black letter, but neither so readily nor so entirely as they did. His first black letter, in use before 1536, was a well cut and beautiful letter it very ; with he printed the Epistle of Erasmus, in octavo, and the Book of Good Works, of which the only copy known is in the hbrary of St. John's College, Oxford. His two most important books are William Marshall's Defence of Peace, folio, 1535, in secretary type, and the Questionary of Cyrurgyens, printed for Henry Wynkyn de Worde 49 Dabbe and R. Bankes. In 1536 the house in which he was working passed into the possession of the Duke of Suffolk, consequently all books which have

' in the colophon in the Duke of Suffolkes Rentes,'

' or Beside the Duke of Suffolkes Place,' were printed after that year. As Wyer continued to print until this circumstance does not us it 1555, help much ; may, however, be taken as some further guide that all his later work was done in black letter. Robert Wyer appears to have done a great deal of work for his contemporaries, notably Richard Bankes, Richard Kele, and John Gough.

Most of his books have rude woodcuts ; the most profusely illustrated was his translation of Christine de Pisan's Hundred Histories of Troy. This book had been printed in Paris by Pigouchet, and the illustrations in Wyer's edition are poor copies of those in the French edition. Robert Wyer's device represented the EvangeUst on the Island of Patmos, with an eagle on his right hand holding an inkhorn. With this he used a separate block with his name and mark. He had also a smaller block of the Evan- gelist from which the eagle was omitted. This is generally found on the title-page or in the front part of his books. CHAPTER III

THOMAS BERTHELET TO JOHN DAY

On the death of Pynson, in 1530, the office of royal printer was conferred upon Thomas Berthelet, who was in business at the sign of the Lucretia Romana in Fleet Street. During the later years of Pynson's life he was assisted by a certain Thomas Bercula or Berclaeus, who is believed to have been identical with Berthelet. Among the writings of Robert Copland, the printer-author, was a humorous tract entitled The Seven sorowes that women have when theyr

husbatides he dead (British Museum, C. 20. c. 42 (5)),

which has at the end this curious passage ;

'Go lytle quayr, god gyve the wel to sayle To that good sheppe, ycleped Bertelet.

And from all nacyons, if that it be thy lot Lest thou be hurt, medle not with a Scot.'

This is, without doubt, an allusion to the two

London printers, Thomas Berthelet and John Skot. Berthelet, or, as he was sometimes called, Bart- lett, was a native of Wales, holding land in the county of Hereford. Berthelet was one of the few I£nglish printers of that period whose work is worth looking at. His types and presswork were good, and 50 Thomas Berthelet to John Day 5 1

he abstained from spoiling his books with bad woodcuts. Berthelet was also a bookbinder and bookseller, and executed some fine bindings for Henry VIII and his successors. He was apparently the first English binder to use gold tooling. Of his official work very little need be said. It consisted of printing all Acts of Parliament, proclamations, injunctions, and other official documents. In the second volume of the Transcript (pp. 50-60), Professor Arber has printed three of Berthclet's yearly accounts, in which are set out the titles, the

number of copies of each that were struck off, and the nature and cost of their bindings. In the year 1530 the divorce of Queen Kathcrine and the King's marriage to Anne Boleyn filled the pubhc mind, and in connection with this event Ber- thelet printed, both in Latin and English, a small

octavo, with the title : 7^he determinations of the vioste famous and mooste excellent Vniversities of Italy and France that it is so unlefull for a niafi to marie his brother'' s wyfe that the Pope hath no power to dispense therewith. Berthelet, in 1531, printed Sir Thomas Ely t's Bake named the Governoiir, an octavo, in a large Gothic type, very bold and clear, printed in double columns. This type, however, is seen to much better advantage in the folio edition of (iower's Confessio Amantis, which came from this pn^ss in 1532. The title of this work was enclosed within a 52 English Printing

panel ^^hich gives it the appearance of a book cover. Iri 1533 Berthelet appears to have purchased a new fount of this type, with which he printed Eras- mus's Dc Inimcnsa Dei Miscricordia. This new letter was even more beautiful than the other, the

' ' lowercase h finishing in a bold outward curve absent in the earlier fount. These founts of Gothic closely resemble some in use in Italy at this time. To the year 1534 belongs St. Cyprian's Sermon on the mortality of man, translated by Sir Thomas Elyot, as well as a second edition of The Boke named the Governour.

Berthelet also brought into use during this year a woodcut border of an architectural character, with the date 1534 cut upon it. It was used only in octavo books, and he continued to use it for some years w ithout erasing the date. We meet with the large Gothic type again in 1535. in an edition of the De Proprietatibus Rerum of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, which Berthelet printed in that year. Another notable undertaking was the book compiled by the bishops, and issued under the King's authority, with the title : The Lnstitution of a Christian Man conteyninge the Exposition or Interpretation of the commune Crcde, of the Seven sacraments, of the X command- ments, and of the Pater Noster, and the Ave Maria, f ustyfication & Purgatory. Latimer, then Bishop of Worcester, had sug- Thomas Berthelet to John Day 53 gested to Cromwell that the printing should be given to Thomas Gibson, but in spite of this the work was entrusted to Berthelet. It was issued both in quarto and octavo form, the quarto printed in a fine fount of English black letter, modelled on those of De W'orde. The opening lines of the title were, however, printed in Roman of four founts, and the whole page was enclosed within a woodcut border of children. The octavo editions of this notable book were printed in a smaller fount of black letter, and the title-page was enclosed within the 1534 border. Several editions were issued in 1537, and the book was afterwards revised and reprinted under a new title. At the same time Berthelet was passing through the press Sir Thomas Elyot's Dictionary, a work of no small labour, if one may judge from the number of founts used in printing it. It was finished and issued in 1538. Berthelet, who, as befitted a royal printer, plainly took some pains to keep himself clear of all controversies, did not stir in the matter of Bible translation until the 1538 edition by Grafton and Whitchurch was already in the market. In 1539, however, he published but did not print Taverner's edition of the Bible, and in the following year an edition of Cranmer's Bible. That of 1539 came from the press of J(;hn ]^>yddcll, and that of 1540 was printed for him by Robert Redman and Thomas Petit. 54 English Printing

Among the Patent Rolls for the year 1543 (P. R. 36 Hen. 8; m. 12) is a grant to Berthelet of certain crown lands in London and other parts of the country, in payment of a debt of ;^220. His office as royal printer ceased upon the accession of Edward VI, and though many books are found

' with the imprint, in aedibus Thomas Berthelet,' down to the time of his death in 1555, he probably took very little active part in business affairs after that time. He was succeeded by his nephew Thomas Powell. Meanwhile Pynson's premises were taken by Robert Redman, who, from about the year 1523, had been living just outside Temple Bar. No new facts have come to light about Redman, and the reasons why he moved into Pynson's house and continued to use his devices are as puzzling as ever. He began as a printer of law-books, and printed little else. In conjunction with Petit he printed an edition of the Bible for Berthelet, and among his other theological books was A treatise conccrn- ynge the division beiwe^ie the Spirytualtie and Tem-

poraltie, as to which there is a note in the Letters

and Papers of Henry VIII (vol. vi. p. 215), from which it appears that, in 1533, Redman entered into a bond of 500 marks not to sell this book or any other licensed by the King. Redman was also the printer of Leonard Coxe's Arte and Crafte of Rhethoryke, one of the earliest treatises on this subject published in English. Thomas Berthelet to John Day 55 Redman's work fell very much below that of his predecessor. Much of his type had been in use in Pynson's office for some years, and was badly worn. He had, however, a good fount of Roman, seen in the De Jiidiciis et Praecognitionibus of Edward Edguardus. The title of this book is enclosed in a border, having at the top a dove, and at the bottom the initials J.N. Redman's will was proved on the 4th November 1540. His widow, Elizabeth, married again, but in the interval several books were printed with her name. His son-in-law, Henry Smith, lived in St. Clement's parish without Temple Bar, and printed law-books in the years 1545 and 1546. ' Redman's successor at the ' George was William Middleton, who continued the printing of law-books, and brought out a folio edition of Froissart's Chro- nicles, with Pynson's colophon and the date 1525, which has led some to assume that this edition was printed by Pynson. Upon Middleton's death in 1547, his widow married William Powell, who thereupon succeeded to the business. Among those for whom Wynkyn de Worde worked shortly before his death was John Byddcll,

' a stationer living at the sign of Our Lady of Pity,' next Fleet i-Jridge, who for some reason spoke of himself under the name of Salisbury. He used as his device a figure of Virtue, copied from one of those in use by Jacques Sacon, printer at Lyons 56 English Printing between 1498 and 1522 (see Silvestrc, Nos. 548 and and 912). The same device, only in a larger form with the lion of St. Mark on the shields, was in use also at Venice. Byddcll had probably been established as a stationer some years before the appearance of Eras- mus's Enchiridion Militis Christiani from the press of De Worde in 1533, with his name in the colophon. Another book printed for him by De Worde, in the same year, was a quarto edition of the Life of Hylde- brand. Both these works De Worde reprinted in 1534, in addition to printing for him John Roberts' A Mustre of scismatykc Bysshoppes. Byddcll was appointed one of the executors to De Worde's will, and very shortly after his death, i.e. in 1535,

' moved to De Worde's premises, the Sun,' in Fleet Street.

Most of Byddell's books were of a theological character. He printed a quarto Horae ad usum Sarutn in 1535, a small Primer in English in 1536, and a folio edition of Taverner's Bible in 1539 for Thomas Berthelet. Among the miscellaneous books that came through his press, one or two are especially interesting. In 1538 we find him printing in quarto Lindsay's Complaynte and Testament of a Popinjay, a work that had first appeared in Scotland eight years before, and created considerable stir. A quarto edition of William Turner's Libellus de Re Herbaria bears the same date while the ; among Thomas Berthelet to John Day 57 books of the year 1540 are editions, in octavo, of

Cicero's De Offlciis and De Senectute. The latest date found in any book of Byddcll's printing is 1544, after which Edward Whitchurch is

' ' found at the Sun in Fleet Street, whither he moved after dissolving partnership with Richard Grafton.

The early history of these two men has a special interest, because of the part they played in printing and pubhshing the English Bible. ^

From the affidavit of Emmanuel Demetrius [i.e. Van Meteren], discovered in 1884 at the Dutch Church in Austin Friars,^ it seems clear that in 1535 Edward Whitchurch was working with Jacob van Meteren at Antwerp in printing Coverdale's translation of the Bible, Richard Grafton was the son of Nicholas Grafton of Shrewsbury. The first record we have of him is his apprenticeship to John Blage, a grocer of London, in 1526. Admitted a freeman of the Company in 1534, he employed himself in furthering the project of an English translation of the whole Bible. On the 13th August 1537, Grafton sent to Archbishop Cranmer a copy of the Bible printed abroad. The text was a modification of Coverdale's translation

' The chief authority on the subject is J. A. Kingdon's Incidents in the Lives of Thomas Poyntz and Richard ii'ra/ton, privately priiUfd in 1895. See also Records 0/ (he Eni^lish Bible, edited by A. W. I'^llanl, 1911. * The Registers of the Dutch Church, Austin Friars, edited by xiii. W.J. C. Moens (Inlroduction, j)]). \iv.). 5 8 English Printing ostensibly by Thomas Mathew, but in reality by John Rogers the editor. In 1538, Coverdale, Graf- ton, and Whitchurch were together in Paris, busy upon a third edition of the Bible. In June of that year they sent two specimens of the text to Crom- well, with a letter stating that they followed the Hebrew text with Chaldee or Greek interpretations. The printing was done at the press of Francis Reg- nault, but before many sheets had been struck off the University of Paris seized the press and 2000 copies of the printed sheets, while the promoters had to make a hasty escape to this country. The presses and types were afterwards bought by Crom- well, and the work was subsequently finished and published in 1539, the edition being known as the Great Bible. The work had a woodcut title-page, ascribed to Holbein, and the price was fixed at ten shillings per copy imbound, and twelve shillings bound.

Before leaving Paris, Grafton and Whitchurch had issued an edition of Coverdale' s translation of the

New Testament, giving as their reason that James Nicholson of Southwark had printed a very imperfect version of it.

' In 1540 Grafton and Whitchurch printed in the ' house late the graye freers The Prymer both in Eng- lysshe and Latin, to be sold at the sign of the Bible in St. Paul's Churchyard, and also a second edition of the great Bible, with a prologue by Cranmer. Half of this edition bore the name of Grafton and Thomas Berthelet to John Day 59 half that of Whitchurch, and in all probability the subsequent editions were published in the same way. Two very good initial letters were used in the New Testament, and seem to have been cut especially for Whitchurch. On the 28th January 1543-44 Grafton and \Miitchurch received an exclusive patent for printing church service books (Rymer, Foedera, xiv. 766), and a few years later they are found with an exclusive right for printing primers in Latin and English. Upon the accession of Edward VI, Grafton became the royal printer, but upon the king's death he printed the proclamation of Lady Jane Grey, and was for that reason deprived of his office by Queen Mary. The remainder of his life he spent in the compilation of English Chronicles in keen rivalry with John Stow. Richard Grafton died in 1573. He was twice married. By his first wife, Anne, daughter of Crome of Salisbury, he had four sons and one daughter, Joan, who married Richard Tottell, the he left one law printer. By his second wife, Alice, son, Nicholas. Grafton used as his device a tun with a grafted fruit-tree growing through it. Among the noted booksellers and printers in St. I'aul's Churchyard at this time must be mentioned William Bonham. From a scries of documents discovered at the Record Office relating to John Rastcll and his house called the 'Mermaid' in Cheapside, it appears that in tiie year 1520 6o English Printing Bonham was working in London as a bookseller, and on two different occasions was a sub-tenant

' of Rastell's at the Mermaid.' Yet not a single dated book with his name is found before 1542, at which time he was living at the sign of the Red Lion in St. Paul's Churchyard, and issued a folio edition of Fabyan's Chronicles, besides having a share with his neighbour, Robert Toye, in a folio edition of Chaucer. Even at this time William Bonham held some sort of office in the Guild or Society of Sta- tioners, for from a curious letter written by Abbot Stevenage to Cromwell in 1539, about a certain book printed in St. Albans Abbey, he says he has sent the printer to London with Harry Pepwell,

' ' Toy, and Bonere {Letters and Papers, H. 8,

vol. xiv. p. 2, No. 315), so that it would look as if they were commissioned to hunt down popish heretical and seditious books. By the marriage of his daughter, Joan, to William Norton, the bookseller, who in turn named his son Bonham Norton, the history of the descendants of William Bonham can be followed up for quite a century later. At the Long Shop in the Poultry we can see the press at work almost without a break from the early years of the sixteenth century till the close of the first quarter of the seventeenth. Upon the removal of Richard Bankes into Fleet Street its next occupant was Richard Kele, who in 1542 issued a Primer in Englysh from this house. He was the son of Thomas Kcle, stationer of Canterbury, who, Thomas Berthelet to John Day 6i in 1526, had occupied John Rastell's house, the * Mermaid,' as stated by Bonham in his evidence. During 1543, in company with Byddell, Grafton, ^liddlcton, Mayler, Petit, and Lant, Richard Kele was imprisoned in the Poultry Compter for printing unlawful books {Ads of Privy Council, New Series, vol. i, pp. 107, 117, 125). Most of the books that bear his name came from the presses of William Seres, Robert Wyer, and William Copland. Per- haps the most interesting of his publications next to the edition of Chaucer, which he shared with Toye and Bonham, are the series of poems by John Skelton, called Why come ye not to Courtc? Colin Clout, and The Boke of Phyllip Sparowc. They were issued in octavo form, and were evidently very hastily turned out from the press, type, woodcuts, and workmanship being of the worst description. Another occupant of the Long Shop for a short time was John Mychcll, who is without doubt identical with the Canterbury printer of that name. A fragment of an undated quarto edition of the Life of St. Margaret, fortunately bearing the colophon, and fragments of another book called The Life of St. Gregory's Mother, prove that Mychell was working in London cither just before Kele took the shop or for about a year after he left it. Looking back over the work done at this time, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the art of i)rinting in lingland had much deteriorated since the days of I'ynson, whilst the best of it, even 62 English Printing that of Bcrthelet, could not be compared with that of the continental presses of the same period. There was an entire absence of originality among the English printers. Types, woodcuts, initial letters, ornaments, and devices were obtained by the printers from abroad, and had seen some service before their arrival in this country. But just at this time a printer came to the front in this country, who for a few years placed the art on a higher foot- ing than any of his predecessors. CHAPTER IV

JOHN DAY

John Day, one of the best and most enterprising of English printers, was born in the year 1522 at Dun- wich, in Suffolk, a once flourishing town, now buried beneath the sea.

From certain entries in the archives of the city of London, it appears that before 1540 he was in the service of a printer named Thomas Raynald or Reynold, who was then living in Finsbury. In John Day's first books there was no sign of the skill he afterwards manifested. These were published in conjunction with William Seres, of whom nothing else is known. The partners began work in

' ' the year 1546 at the sign of the Resurrection on

Snow Hill, a little above Holborn Conduit, that is, somewhere in the neighbourhood of the present via- duct. They had also another shop in Chcapsidc. Their first book, so far as we know, was Sir David

' Lindsay's poem, The Tragical death of David Beaton, Bishop of St. Andrews in Scotland; Wher- unto is joyncd the martyrdom of maister G. Wyscharte

. . . for whose sake the aforesayd bishoppe was not

' long after slayne (1546. 8vo). In the following year (1547) Day and Seres 63 64 English Printing

printed several other books of a religions character, nearly all of them in octavo, including Cope's Godly Mcditacion upon the psalms, and Tyndale's Parable of the Wicked Mammon. Their work in 1548 included a second edition of of the of the Consultation Hermann, bishop Cologne ;

Robert's Crowley's Confutation of Myles Hoggarde ; of Latimer's a metrical aimed at a sermon ; dialogue the priesthood and entitled fohn Bon and Mast

Person ; and, as a relief to so much theological literature, the Herbal of William Turner. The types used in printing these books were not a whit better than anybody else's. There was the usual fount of large black letter, not by any means new, another much smaller letter of the same character, and a very poor fount of Roman capitals. The workmanship was no better than the types. There was no pagination in these books, and no devices, and the setting of the letterpress was very uneven. In 1548 Seres joined partnership with another printer, Anthony Scoloker, who had recently come from Ipswich and moved to a house in St. Paul's called Peter but his name still Churchyard, College ; continued to appear with Day's down to the year 155 1, when the partnership was dissolved, Day moving to Aldcrsgate, but retaining his shop in Cheapside. The most important undertaking of the partnership was a folio edition of the Bible in 1549. This John Day 65 was printed in the smaller of the two founts of black letter in double columns, with some good initials and a great many woodcuts that had evidently been used before, as they extend beyond the letterpress. Another edition printed by Day alone appeared in

155 1, in which a good initial E, showing Edward VI on his throne, is found. Early in the year 1550, Day, who had hitherto belonged to the Bowstring- makers' Company, was allowed to become a freeman of the Company of Stationers. Soon after the accession of Queen Mary, Day was ' arrested and sent to the Tower for pryntyng of noythy bokes,' and his press was silent for several years. Meanwhile the ancient brotherhood of Sta- tioners was incorporated by Royal Charter as the ' Worshipful Company of Stationers.' The existence of the brotherhood has been traced to as early as 1404, and it is frequently mentioned in the wills of printers and booksellers in the first half of the sixteenth century. By the Charter of 4th May 1557 it received the Royal authority to make its own laws for the regulation of the trade, although,

' as Mr. Arbcr has pointed out, the charter rather confirmed existing customs than erected fresh powers.' There is abundant evidence that the Queen's main reason for granting the charter was the wish to keep the printing trade under closer control. The newly incorporated company included nearly all the men connected with the book trade, not only printers, but booksellers, bookbinders, and type- 66 English Printing founders. There were some who, for some unex- plained reason, were not enrolled. The omission of others is easily accounted for. Grafton and Whitchurch were both in disgrace, Grafton for having printed Lady Jane's proclamation, and Whitchurch for his opinions, while Hugh Singleton's name was probably absent for the same reason. In the registers of the company were recorded the names of the wardens and masters, the names of all apprentices, with the masters to whom they were bound, and the names of those who took up their freedom. The titles of all books were supposed to be entered by the printer or publisher, a small fee being paid in each case. As a matter of fact many books were not so entered. Entries of gifts to the corporation, and of fines levied on the members, also form part of the annual record. Literary men of the eighteenth century were the first to discover and make use of the wealth of information contained in the Registers of the Stationers' but it fell to the lot of Company ; Mr, Arber to give English scholars a full transcript of the earlier registers. In order to make it complete, he supplemented the work with numerous valuable papers in the Record Office and other archives, and a bibliographical list down to the year 1603. The first master of the company was Thomas Proctor of the Court of Arches Dockwray, ; and the wardens were John Cawood, the Queen's printer, and Henry Cooke. John Day 67

Day's name occurs in the charter, and liis press was evidently at work again in that year, for there is a Sarum Missal of that date with his imprint, besides several other books, including Thomas

Tusser's Hundred Points of Good Husscrye (i.e. William Bullcin's Government Housewifery) ; of Health, and sundry proclamations. But it was not until 1559 that his books began to show that excellence of workmanship that laid the foundation of his fame. In that year he issued in folio The Cosmographicall Glasse of \\'illiam Cunningham, a physician of Nonvich. As a specimen of the printer's art it was far in advance of any of Day's previous work, and, moreover, was in advance of anything seen in England before that time. The text was printed in a large, flowing italic letter of great beauty, further enhanced by several well-executed

' woodcut initials. Amongst these was a letter D,' containing the arms of the Earl of Leicester, to whom the work was dedicated. There were also scattered through the book several diagrams and maps, a fine portrait of the author, and a plan of the city of Norwich. Some of these illustrations

and initials were signed J. !>., others J. I). The title-page was also engraved with allegorical figures of the arts and sciences. Students and lovers of good books may well pay a tribute to the memory of that scholarly church- man. Archbishop Parker, who rescued so many of the books that were scattered at the dissolution 68 English Printing of the monasteries, and enriched Cambridge Uni- versity and some of its colleges by his gifts of books and manuscripts. But Matthew Parker did not stop short at book-collecting. He believed that good books should be well printed, and on his accession to power under Elizabeth, he encouraged John Day and others, both with his authority and his purse, to cut new founts of type and to print books in a worthy form. In 1560 Day began to print the collected works of Thomas Becon, the reformer. The whole impression occupied three folio volumes, and was not completed until 1564. The founts chiefly used in this were black letter of two sizes, supplemented with italic and Roman. The initials used in the Cosmo- graphicall Glasse appeared again in this, and the title-page to each part was enclosed in an elaborate architectural border, having in the bottom panel Day's small device, a block showing a sleeper

' awakened, and the words, Arise, for it is Day.' At the end was a fine portrait of the printer. Another important undertaking of the year 1560 was a folio edition of the Commentaries of Joannes Philippson, otherwise called Sleidanus. This Day printed for Nicholas England, the fount of large italic being used in conjunction with black letter. Sermons of Calvin, Bullinger, and Latimer are all that we have to illustrate his work during the next two years. But in 1563 appeared a handsome folio, the ediiio princeps of Ades and Monumentes John Day 69 of these latter and perillous Dayes, touching matters of the Church, better known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs. During Marj^'s reign Foxe had found a home on the Continent. In 1554, while at Strasburg, he had pubHshed, through the press of WendeHn Richel, a Latin treatise on the persecutions of the reformers, under the title of Commentarii rerum in Ecclesia gestarum maxiniarionque persecutionum a Vniclevi temporihus dcscriptio. From Strasburg he removed to Basle, and from the press of Oporinus, in 1559, appeared the Latin edition of the Book of Martyrs. He did not return to England until October of that year, when he settled in Aldgate, and made weekly visits to the printing-house of John Day, who was then busy on the English edition. Foxe's Actes and Monumentes is a work of 2008

folio pages, printed in double columns, the type used being a small English black letter, the same which had been used in Becon's Works, supplemented with various sizes of italic and Roman. It was illustrated throughout with woodcuts representing the tortures and deaths of the martyrs. A very handsome initial letter E, showing Queen Elizabeth and her courtiers, is also found in it. A Royal proclamation ordered that a copy of it should be set up in every parish church. From this time Foxe appears to have worked as translator and editor for John Day, and was for a while living in the printer's house. yo English Printing Archbishop Parker meanwhile had induced Day to cast a fount of Saxon types in metal. The first ' book in which these were used was Aelfric's Saxon Homily,' i.e. the Sermon of the Paschal Lamb, appointed by the Saxon bishop to be read at Easter before the Sacrament, an Epistle of Aelfric to Wulf- sine, the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the X Com- mandments, all of which were included in the

' general title of A Testimonye of Antiquity, shewing the auncient fayth in the Church of England touching the Sacrament of the body and blonde of the Lord here publykely preached and also receaved in the Saxons tyme, above 600 yeares agoe.' Speaking of Day's Saxon fount, the late Mr. Talbot Reed, in his Old English Letter Foundries

(p. 96), says :

' The Saxon fount ... is an English in body, very clear and bold. Of the capitals eight only, including two diphthongs, are distinctively Saxon, the remaining eighteen letters being ordi- while in nary Roman ; the lowercase there are twelve Saxon letters, as against fifteen of the Roman. The accuracy and regularity with which this fount was cut and cast is highly creditable to Day's excellence as a founder.'

Although this book (an octavo) bore no date, the names of the subscribing bishops fix it at 1566 or 1567. In the latter year appeared the Archbishop's metrical version of the Psalter, which he had compiled during his enforced exile under Mary. In connection with this it may be well to point out that Day printed many editions of the Psalter with musical notes. In 15G8 Day used the Saxon types John Day 71

again to print W'illiam Lambard's Archaionomia, a book of Saxon laws. Amongst his other productions of that year must be mentioned the foHo edition of Peter Martyr's Commentary on the Epistle

to the Romans ; Gildas the historian's De excidio et 8vo and a French conquestu Britanniae, 1568, ; ' version of Vandemoot's Theatre for Worldlings, le Theatre auquel sont exposes et monstres les incon- veniens et miseres qui suivent les mondains et

vicieux, ensemble les plaisirs et contentements dont

les fideles jouissent.' There is a copy of this very rare book in the Grenville collection. The Theatre for Worldlings was translated into English the following year, and contained verses from the pen of Edmund Spenser, then a boy of sixteen. Another literary work of some importance which issued from Day's press was the authorised version, published in 1570, of a play which had been acted nine years before by the gentlemen of the Inner Temple before Her Majesty. It had shortly afterwards been pub-

lished by W'ilHam Griftith of Fleet Street as :

' The tragedy of Gorboduc, whereof Three Actes were wrytten by Thomas Norton and the two last by Thomas Sackvyle. Set forth as the same was shewed before the Quccncs most excellent Maiestie in her highnes Court of Whitehall, the xviii day of January Anno Domini 1561, liy the gentlemen of Thynner Temple in London.' Day's edition was

entitled ;

'The Tragidie

' ' rounded by flames, the word Christus being on the slab. From the wrists hangs a chain, and in the centre of this is suspended a globe, and beneath that again is a representation of the sun. Round the

' chain is a ribbon with the words Horum Charitas.'

This device was placed on the title-page, which was surrounded by a neat border of printer's ornaments. The Booke of certaine Canons, 4to, was another pubHcation of this year for the due ordering of the Church. This, like most public documents, was in

' a large black letter. There were also Articles of the London Synod of 1562.' As a specimen of the relgious sermons or discourses of the time we have a very good example in another of Day's publications in 1571, a reprint of The Poore Mans Librarie, a discourse by George Alley, Bishop of Exeter, upon the First Epistle of St. Peter, which made up a very respectable folio, printed in Day's best manner, and with a great number of founts. Day's prosperity roused the envy of his fellow- John Day 73 stationers, and they tried their best to hinder the sale of his books and cause him annoyance. This opposition took a violent form in 1572, when Day, whose premises at Aldersgate had become too small to carry on his growing business, his stock being valued at that time between ;^2000 and ;^3ooo, obtained the leave of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's to set up a Httle shop in St. Paul's Church- yard for the sale of his books. The booksellers appealed to the Lord Mayor, who was prevailed upon to stop Day's proceedings, and it required all the power and influence of Archbishop Parker, backed by an order of the Privy Council, to enable the ^ printer to carry out his project. The Archbishop meanwhile had been busy furnishing replies to Nicholas Sanders' book De Visi- bili Monarchia, and amongst those whom he selected for the work was Dr. Clerke of Cambridge, who accordingly wrote a Latin treatise entitled Fidclis Servi suhdito infideli Responsio. From a letter written by the Archbishop to Lord Burleigh at this time, we learn that John Day had cast a special fount of Italian letter for this book at a cost of forty marks.2 By Italian letter is here meant Roman, and not italic as Mr. Reed supposes, for the Responsio was printed in a new fount of that type, clear, even, and free from abbreviations.

' Sec Strypc's Life of Parker, p. 541. Arbcr's Transcript, vol. ii. * Strypc's Life of Parker, pp. 382, 541. 74 English Printing

In the same year (1572) Day printed at the Arch- bishop's private press at Lambeth his great work

De Aiitiquitaie Britannicae Ecclesiae in folio, in a new fount of itahc, with preface in Roman, and the titles and sub-titles in the larger italic of the Cosmo- grapJiicall Glasse. It was a special feature of Day's letter-founding that he cut the Roman and italic letters to the same size. Before his time there was no the founts uniformity ; separate mixed badly, and spoilt the appearance of many books that would otherwise have been well printed. The De Antiquitate is believed to have been the first book printed at a private press in England.

The issue was limited to fifty copies, and the majority of them were in the Archbishop's possession at the time of his death.

But while he encouraged printing in one direction, Matthew Parker rigorously persecuted it in another. Just at this time there was much division among Protestants on matters of doctrine and ceremonial, and Thomas Cartwright published, in 1572, a book entitled A Second Admonition to the Parliament, in which he defended those who had been imprisoned for airing their opinions in the first Admonition. This book, like many others of the time, was printed secretly, and strenuous search was made by the wardens of the Stationers' Company, Day being one, to discover the hidden press. The search was successful, but unpleasant consequences followed for John Day. One of the printers of the pro- John Day 75 hibited book turned out to be an apprentice of his o^vn named Asplyn. He was released after examination, and again taken into service by his late master. But the following year the Archbishop reported to the Council that this man Asplyn had tried to kill both Day and his wife. Day's work in 1573 included a folio edition of the whole works of William Tyndale, John Frith, and Doctor Barnes, in two volumes. This was printed in two columns, with type of the same size

' ' and character as that used in the Works of Becon, some of the initial letters closely resembling those found in books printed by Reginald Wolfe. In the same year Day issued a life of Bishop Jewell, for which he cut in wood a number of Hebrew words. In 1574 we reach the summit of excellence in Day's work. It was in that year that he printed; for Archbishop Parker, Asser's Life of Alfred the Great {Aelfredi Regis Res Gestae) in foUo. In this

' ' the Saxon type cast for the vSaxon Homily in 1567 was again used in conjunction with the magnificent founts of double pica Roman and itahc. With it is usually bound Walsingham's Ypodigmc Ncustria and Ilislvria Brevis, the first printed by Day, and the second by Bynncman, who unquestionably used the same types, so that it may be inferred that the fount was at the disposal of the Archbishop, at whose expense all three books were issued. Another series of publications that came from the press of John Day in 1574 were the writings 76 English Printing of John Cains on the history and antiquities of the two Universities. They are generally found bound

together in the following order :

1. Dc Antiquitate Cantabrigiensis Acadcmiae. 2. Assertio Antiquitatis Oxoniensis Academiae.

3. Historia Cantabrigiensis Academiae.

4. Johannis Caii Angli, De Pronunciatione Graecae et Latinae linguae cum scriptione noua libellus.

' ' ' ' The Antiquities and History of Cambridge were both books of considerable size, the first having 268 pages, without counting prefatory matter and indexes. The other two were little better than

tracts, the one having only 27 and the other 23 pages. Some editions of the De Antiquitate are

' ' found with a map of Cambridge, while the History contained plates showing the arms of the various colleges. All four were printed in quarto. The type used for the text was in each case an italic of English size, with a small Roman for indexes. The

title-page was enclosed in a border of printers' ornaments, and the printer's device of the heart was on the last leaf of two out of the four.

Matthew Parker died in 1575, and the art of printing, as well as every other art and science, lost a generous patron. But Day's work was not yet done, though he printed few large books after this date. A very curious folio, written by John Dee, the famous astronomer, entitled General and Rare John Day 77 Memorials concerning Navigation, came from his press in 1577. This work had an elaborate allegorical title-page, by no means a bad specimen of wood-engraving. It was a history in itself, the central object being a ship with the Queen seated in the after part. In 1578 Day printed a book in Greek and Latin for the use of scholars, Christianae pietatis prima institutio, the Greek type being a great improvement on any that had previously appeared. Indeed, it has been considered equal to those in use by the Estiennes of Paris. The year 1580 saw Day Master of the Stationers' Company. Two years later he was engaged in a series of lawsuits about his ^ 5 C and litell Cate- chism, a book for which he had obtained a patent in the days of Edward VI. As we have already noted, the aim of the Govern- ment in granting a charter to the Stationers' Com- pany was not primarily the promotion of good printing or literature. Printers were looked upon by the authorities as dangerous persons whom it was necessary to watch closely. On the 29th June 1566, Elizabeth signed a decree passed by the Star Chamber, requiring every printer to enter into sub- stantial recognisances for his good behaviour. No books were to be printed or imported without the sanction of a Special Commission of Ecclesiastical authorities, under a penalty of three months' imprisonment and the forfeiture of all right to carry 7^ English Printing on business as a master printer or bookseller in future, while the officers of the company were in- structed to carry out strict search for all prohibited books.

On the other hand, while thus retaining a tight rein on the printing trade, the Queen granted special patents for the sole printing of certain classes of books to individual master printers, and threatened pains and penalties upon any other member of the craft who should dare to print them. In this way all the best-paying work in the trade became the property of some dozen or so of printers. Master Tottell was allowed the sole printing of Law Books, Master Jugge the sole printing of Bibles, James Roberts and Richard \\'atkins the sole printing of Almanacs Thomas a ; Vautrollier, stranger, was allowed to print all Latin books except the Grammars, which were given to Thomas Marsh, and John Day had received the right of printing and selling the ABC and Litcll Catechism, a book largely bought for schools, and which Christopher Barker declared ' was once the onelye reliefe of the porest sort of that Company.' On every side the best-paying work was seized and monopohscd. Nor did the evil cease there. These patents were invariably granted for life with reversion to the successor, and they were and sold bought freely. There was very little light literature, and what there was had very few readers. Hence the members of poorer the company daily found it harder to live. Their appeals for redress of John Day 79 grievances, whether addressed to the State or to the company, which pretended to look after their welfare, were alike in vain, and at length they rose in open revolt. Half a dozen of them, headed by two printers named Roger Ward and John Wolf, boldly printed the books owned by the patentees. Roger Ward seized upon this A B C of Day's, and at a secret press, with type supplied to him by a workman of Thomas Purfoot, printed many thousand copies of the work with Day's mark. Hence the proceedings in the Star Chamber. They did very \\'ard defied and the little good. imprisonment ; agitators would undoubtedly have gained more than they did had it not been for the desertion of John Wolf, who, after declaring that he would work a re- formation in the printing trade similar to that which Luther had worked in religion, quietly allowed himself to be bought over, and died in eminent respect- abihty as Printer to the City of London, leaving Ward and others to carry on the war. This they did with such effect that, forced to find a remedy, the patentees of the company at length agreed to relax their grasp of some of the books that they had laid their hands upon. Day is said to have rehnquished no fewer than fifty-three, and this number is in itself a commentary on the magnitude of the monopolies. John Day died at Walden in Essex, on the 23rd July 1584, at the age of sixty-two, and was buried at Bradley Parva, where there is a fair tomb and a 8o English Printing lengthy poetical epitaph to his virtues and abilities. He was twice married, and is said to have had twenty-six children, of whom one son, Richard, was for a short time printer, and another, John, took Orders, and became rector of Little Thurlow in Suffolk.

John Day had three devices. His earliest, and perhaps his best, was a large block of a skeleton lying on an elaborately chased bier, with a tree at the back, and two figures, an old man and a young, standing beside it. This may have been typical of the Resurrection, the sign of the house in which he began business. Then we find the device of the heart in his later books, and finally there is the block of the sleeper awakened, but this almost always formed part of the title-page.

APPENDIX

LIST OF PRINTERS AND STATIONERS ENROLLED IN THE CHARTER

Alday, John. Brodehead, Gregory. Broke, Robert. Baldwyn, Richard. Browne, Edward. Baldwyn, William. Burtoft, John. Blythe, Robert. Bylton, Thomas. Bonham, John. Bonham, William. Case, John. Bourman, Nicholas. Cater, Edward. Boyden, Thomas. Cawood, John. John Day 8i

Clarke, John. Ireland, Roger. Cleston, Nicholas.

Cooke, Henry. Jaques, John. William. Cooke, Judson, John. William. Copland, Jugge, Richard. Cottesford, Hugh. Coston, Simon. Kele, John. Croke, Adam. Kevall, John. Crosse, Richard. Kevall, junior, Richard. Crost, Anthony. Kevall, Stephen. Kyng, John. Day, John. Devell, Thomas. Richard. Dockwray, Thomas. Lant, Michael. Duxwell, Thos. Lobel,

Fayreberne, John. Marten, Will. Fox, John. Marsh, Thos. Frenche, Peter. Maskall, Thomas.

or Gammon Allen. Gamlyn Norton, Henry. Thomas. Gee, Norton, William. Gonneld, James. Gough, John. Paget, Richard. Greffen or Ciriffith, William. Parker, Thomas. Grene, Richard. Pattinson, Thomas. \Villiam. Harry.son, Richard. Pickering, Harvey, Richard. Powell, Humphrey. Powell, Thomas. Hestt-r, Andrew. William. Holder, Robert. Powell, Purfoot, Thomas. Holyland, James. Huke, Gyles. Hyll, John. Radborne, Robert. Hyll, Richard. Richardson, Richard. Hyll, William. Rogers, John. V 82 English Printing

Rogers, Owen. Tavemer, Nicholas. Ryddall, Will. Tottle, Richard. Turke, John. Sawyer, Thomas. Tyer, Randolph. Seres, William. Tysdale, John. Shereman, John. Skerewe, Thomas Walley, Charles. Smyth, Anthony. Walley, John. Spylman, Simon. Wallys, Richard. Steward, William. Way, Richard. Sutton, Edward. Whitney, John. Sutton, Henry. Wolfe, Reginald. Amongst the men whose names were not inchided in the charter were :

Baker, John, made free Charlewood, John. 24th Oct. 1555. Hacket, Thomas. Caley, Robert. Singleton, Hugh. Chandeler, Giles, made Wayland, John. free 24th Oct. 1555. Wyer, Robert CHAPTER V

JOHN day's contemporaries

Most notable of all the men who lived and worked with Day was Reginald or Reyner Wolfe, of the Brazen Serpent in St. Paul's Churchyard, Much as we have to regret the scantiness of all material for a study of the Hves of the early English printers, it is doubly felt in the case of Reginald Wolfe. The little that is made known to us is just sufficient to whet the appetite and kindle the curiosity. It reveals to us an active business man, evidently with large capital behind him, setting up as a bookseller under the shadow of the great Cathedral, and rapidly becoming known to the learned and the rich. We see him passing backwards and forwards between this country and the book fair at Frankfort, executing commissions for great nobles, and at the same time acting as the king's courier. Later on we find him adding the trade of printer to that of bookseller, and I have very little doubt that it was partly to the advice and inlluence of Reginald Wolfe tiiat we owe the improvement that took place in John Day's printing. As a printer he stands beside l^ay in the excellence of his workmanship, and he was the iirst in England who possessed any large stock of (ireck type. 83 84 English Printing

Reyner Wolfe was a native of Dretunhe (?), in Gelderland, as shown by the letters of denization which he took out on the 2nd January 1533-4

(State Papers, Hen. 8, vol. 6, No. 105). He had been established in St. Paul's Churchyard some years before this, however, as in a letter from Thomas Tebold to the Earl of Wiltshire, dated the 4th April 1530, he says he has arrived at Frankfurt, and

' hopes to hear from his lordship through Reygnard Wolf, bookseller, of St. Pauls Churchyard, London, who will be here in two days.' His house was distinguished by the sign of the Brazen Serpent. It was not until the 9th March 1536 that he became a freeman of the City of London, the privilege being granted to him at the express desire of Queen Anne Boleyn, and then only on the condition that he should take no apprentices but Englishmen according to the ancient custom of the city {Biblio- graphical Society's Transactions, vol. 6, p. 18). In 1539 he was paid loos. for conveying the King's letters to Christopher Mounte, his Grace's agent in High Almayne (Letters and Papers, vol. xiv. pt. 2, No. 781). In 1542 he began to print several of the writings of John Leland the antiquary. The first was Naeniae in mortem T. Viati, Eqnitis incomparabilis. Joanne Lelando, antiquario, authore, a quarto, printed in a well-cut fount of Roman identical with some used by John Wolf at Frankfurt. This was followed in the same year by Genethliacon, a work specially written by Leland John Day's Contemporaries 85 for Prince Edward, with a dedication to Prince Henry, the iirst part being printed in itahc and the second in Roman type. On the verse of the last leaf is the printer's very beautiful device of children throwing at an apple-tree, certainly one of the most artistic devices in use amongst the printers of that time.

To this work succeeded, in 1543, the Homilies of Saint Chrysostom, of which John Cheke, Professor in Greek at Cambridge University, was editor. The whole of the first part of the work, with the exception of the dedication, was in Greek letter, making thirty lines to the quarto page. The second part, which had a separate title-page, was printed with the itahc, and the supplementary parts with the Roman types. Some very fine pictorial initial letters were used in the work, and the larger form of the apple-tree device occurs on the last leaf, with a Greek and Latin motto. A very rare specimen of Wolfe's work in 1543 is Robert Recorde's The groud of artes ieachyng the workke and practise of Arithmetike much necessary for all states of men, a small octavo printed in black letter, but of no particular merit. In the same type and form he issued in the following year a tract entitled The late expcdicion in Scotlande, &c. Chrysostom's De Providcntia Dei and Laudatio Pads were })rintcd in the Roman and italic founts during 1545 and 1546, and arc the only record we have left of Wolfe's work as a printer during those 86 English Printing

years. In 1547 he was appointed the king's printer in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and was granted an annuity of twenty-six shilKngs and eightpence during his Hfc (Pat. Rol., 19th April 1547). In 1553 trouble arose between Wolfe and Day as to their respective rights of printing Edward the Sixth's catechism. The matter was settled by \\^olfe having the privilege for printing the Latin version, and Day that in English, but neither party reaped much benelit, as upon the king's death the book was called in, having only been in circulation a few months. During Mary's reign the only important work that seems to have come from Wolfe's press was Recorde's Castle of Knowledge, a folio, with an elaborately engraved title-page, and a dedication to Cardinal Pole. In 1560 Wolfe became Master of the Company of Stationers, a position to which he was elected on three subsequent occasions, in 1564, 1567, and 1572. His patents were renewed to him under Elizabeth, and he came in for his share of the patronage of Matthew Parker, whose edition of Jewel's Apologia he printed in quarto form in 1562. In 1563 appeared from his press the Commonplaces of Scripture, by Wolfgang Musculus, a folio, chiefly notable for a very fme pictorial initial 'I,' measuring nearly 3J inches square, and representing the Creation, which had obviously formed part of the opening chapter of Genesis in some early edition of the Bible. It was used again in the 1577 edition of Hollinshed's Chronicle. John Day's Contemporaries 87 Almost his last work was Matthew Paris's His- toria Major, edited by Matthew Parker, a handsome foHo with an engraved title-page, several good pictorial initials, and his large device of the apple-tree, printed in 1571. Without doubt the printer was greatly interested in this work. He had himself collected materials for a chronicle of his adopted country, which he amused himself with in his spare time. But he did not live to print it, his death taking place late in the year 1573. His will was short, and mentioned none of his children by name. His property in St. Paul's Churchyard, which included the Chapel or Charnel House on the north side, which he had purchased of King Henry VHI, he left to his wife, and the witnesses to his will were George Bishop, Raphael Hohnshed, John Hunn, and John Shepparde.i His wife, Joan Wolfe, only survived him a few months, her will, which is also preserved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury,^ being proved on the 20th July 1574. In it occurs

the following passage :

'I will that Raphell Ilollinj^slied shall have and cnjoyc all such benefit, proffit, and commoditie as was promised unto him by my said late husbande Reginald Wolfe, for or concerning the translating and prynting of a certain crownacle which my said husVjand before his decease did prepare and intendc to have prynled.'

She further mentioned in her will a son Robert, a son Henry, and a daughter Mary, the wife of John

' * 1". I C C , Marlyn. Ibid., 32 Martyn. 88 English Printing

Harrison, citizen and stationer, as well as Luke Harrison, a citizen and stationer, while among the witnesses to it was Gabriel Cawood, the son of John Cawood, who lived hard by at the sign of the Holy

' Ghost, next to Powles Gate.' From a document in the Heralds' College (W. Grafton, vi., A. B. C, Lond.), it appears that John Cawood, who began to print about the same time as Day, came from a Yorkshire family of good standing. He was apprenticed to John Reynes, a bookseller and bookbinder, who from 1523 until his death lived at the sign of St. George in the Churchyard. Cawood greatly respected his master, and in aftertimes, when he had become a prosperous man, placed a window in Stationers' Hall to the memory of John Reynes. Reynes died in 1544, ^^^ there is no mention of Cawood in his will, perhaps because Cawood was no in his service but in of longer ; that his widow, Lucy Reynes, there was a legacy to John Cawood's daughter. Cawood began to print in the year 1546, the first specimen of his presswork being a little octavo, entitled The Decree for Tythes to be payed in the Citye of London.

With few exceptions the printers of this period easily enough conformed to the religious factions of the day. Thus Cawood prints Protestant books under Edward VI, Catholic books under Mary, and again Protestant books under Elizabeth. Upon the accession of Mary he was appointed royal printer in John Day's Contemporaries 89 the place of Grafton, who had dared to print the proclamation of Lady Jane Grey (Rymer's Foedera, vol. XV. p. 125). He also received the reversion of Wolfe's patent for printing Latin, Greek, and Hebrew books, as well as all statute books, acts, proclamations, and other official documents, with a salary of

{Jb, 13s. ^d. The British Museum possesses a volume

(505. g. 14) containing the statutes of the reign of Queen Mary, printed in small folio by Cawood. From these it will be seen that he used some very artistic woodcut borders for his title-pages, notably one with bacchanalian figures in the bottom panel

' signed A. S.' in monogram, evidently the same artist that cut the woodcut initials seen in these and other books printed by this printer, and who is believed to have been Anton Sylvius, an Antwerp engraver. Cawood was one of the first wardens of the Stationers' Company in 1554, and again served from 1555-57, ^^^ continued to take great interest in its welfare throughout his life. In 1557, Cawood, in company with John Waley and Richard Tottell, published the Works of Sir Thomas More in a large and handsome folio. The editor was William

Rastell, Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, son of John Rastell the printer, and nephew of the great chancellor.

' ' The book was printed at the Hand and Star in Fleet Street by Tottell, but the woodcut initials were certainly supplied by Cawood, and perhaps some of the type. On the accession of Elizabeth, he again 90 English Printing received a patent as royal printer, but jointly with Richard Jugge, whose name is always found first. Nevertheless, Cawood printed at least two (very poor) editions of the Bible in quarto, with his name alone on the title-page. His rapidly increasing business had already compelled him to lease from the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's a vault under the churchyard, and two sheds adjoining the church, and in addition to this he now took a room at Sta- tioners' Hall at a rental of 20s. per year. In conjunction with Jugge he printed many editions of the Book of Common Prayer in all sizes. He also reprinted, in 1570, Barclay's Ship of Fools with the original illustrations. Cawood was three times Master of the Company of Stationers, in 1561, 1562, and 1566. In 1564 he was appointed by EUzabeth Toye, the widow of Robert Toye, one of the overseers to her will, and his partner Jugge was one of the witnesses to the document (P. C. C, 25 Morrison). John Cawood died in 1572 without leaving a will, administration of his estate being granted to his son Gabriel on the 19th July. He was three times married, and by his first wife, Joan, had three sons and four daughters. His eldest son John was bachelor of laws and fellow of New College, Oxford, died in the second and 1570 ; Gabriel, son, succeeded to his father's business, and the third son died young. His eldest daughter, Mary, married George Bishop, one of the deputies to Christopher

Barker ; a second, Isabel, married Thomas Wood- John Day's Contemporaries 91

cock, a stationer ; Susannah was the wife of Robert Bullock, and Barbara married Mark Norton. Richard Jugge was another printer who owed much to the patronage and encouragement of Arch- bishop Parker. He is believed to have been born at W'aterbeach in Cambridgeshire, and was educated, first at Eton, and afterwards at Cambridge. He

' ' set up at the sign of The Bible in 1548, and used as his device a pelican plucking at her breast to feed her young who are clamouring around her. In 1550 he obtained a licence to print the New Testament, and in 1556 books of Common Law. Under Eliza- beth in 1560 he was made senior queen's printer. When the new edition of the Bible was about to be issued in 1568, Archbishop Parker wrote to Cecil, asking that Jugge might be entrusted with the print-

ing, as there were few men who could do it better. In this way he became the printer of the first edition of the Bishop's Bible, a second edition coming from his press the year following. In this work he used large decorative initial letters, with the arms of the Archbishop and Burghley, engraved portraits of Burghley and Leicester, and a fine, though weakly engraved title-page with a portrait of the Queen. In his edition of the New Testament were numerous

large cuts, evidently of foreign workmanship, some

' of them signed with the initials E. B.' Richard Jugge died in 1577. Another of Day's contemporaries, whose name is remembered by all students of English litcra- 92 English Printing ture, was Richard Tottell, who hved at the 'Hand and Star' in Fleet Street, and printed there the collection of poetry known as Tottell's

' Miscellany.' Richard Tottell was the fourth son of Henry Tottell, citizen of Exeter. The name was spelt in a great variety of ways, such as Tothill, Tuthill, Tottle, Tathyll, and Tottell. He was in London before 1552, for in that year he received a patent for the printing of law-books, and was generally known as Richard Tottell of London, gentleman. He appears to have married Joan, a sister of Richard Grafton, and in this way became possessed of considerable land in the county of Bucks. He also printed various editions of Grafton's Chronicle, and received the reversion of some of his finest woodcut borders. It was in June 1557 that he printed his famous

' Miscellany,' an unpretentious quarto, with the the title : Songes and Sonnettes, written by Ryght Honorable Lorde Henry Hawarde, late Earl of Surrey and other. Before the 31st July a second edition became necessary, and this was printed in two different settings. The third edition appeared in 1559, the fourth in 1565, and before the end of the sixteenth century four more editions were called for. Another of Tottell's productions was Gerard Legh's Accedens of Armory, an octavo, printed throughout in italic type, with a curiously engraved title-page, besides numerous illustrations of coats of arms, and John Day's Contemporaries 93 several full-page illustrations. It was printed in 1562, and again in 1576 and 1591. The best of Totteli's work as a printer is to be found in the law-books for which he was a patentee. In these he used several handsome borders to title- pages, one of an architectural character with his initials R. T. at the two bottom comers, another, evidently Grafton's, with a view of the King and ParUamcnt in the top panel, and Grafton's punning device in the centre of the bottom panel. In 1573 Richard Tottell tried to estabHsh a paper mill in England. He wrote to Cecil, pointing out that nearly all paper came from France, and undertaking to estabhsh a mill in England if the Govern- ment would give him the necessary land and the sole privilege of making paper for thirty years (Arber, i. 242). His letter, however, seems to have met no response. Tottell was Master of the Com- pany of Stationers in 1579 ^^^ ^5^4- During the latter part of his life he withdrew from business, and lived at Wiston in Pembrokeshire, where he died in 1593. He left several children, of whom the eldest, William Tottell, succeeded to his estates. In the precincts of the Blackfriars, Thomas Vautrollicr, a foreigner, was printing in or before 1570, having been admitted a 'brother' of the Company of Stationers on the 2nd October 1564. He soon afterwards received a patent for the printing of certain Latin books, and Christopher 94 English Printing

Barker, in a report to Lord Burghley in 1582, says :

' He has the printing of Tullie, Ovid, and diverse other great workes in Latin. He doth yet, neither great good nor great harme withall. ... He hath other small thinges wherewith he bookesellers keepeth his presses on work, and also worketh for of the Companye, who kepe no presses.'

In 1580, on the invitation of the General Assembly, Vautrollier visited Scotland, taking with him a stock of books, but no press, and in 1584 he again went north and set up a press at Edinburgh, still keeping on his business in London. The venture does not seem to have turned out a success, for Vautrollier returned to London in 1586, taking with him a MS. of John Knox's History of the Reforma- tion, but the work was seized while it was in the press (Works of fohn Knox, vol. i. p. 32). Vautrollier died in July 1587. By his will he bequeathed to his son, Manasscs, the printing press which he had brought back from Scotland. The residue of his estate he left to his wife Jacqueline and his ' four children.'

As a printer Vautrollier ranks far above most of the men around him, both for the beauty of his types and the excellence of his presswork. The bulk of his books were printed in Roman and italic, of which he had several well-cut founts. He had

also some good initials, ornaments, and borders. In the folio edition of Plutarch's Lives, which he printed in 1579, each hfe is preceded by a medallion John Day's Contemporaries 95 of portrait, enclosed in a frame geometrical pattern ; some of these, notably the first, and also those shown on a white background, are very effective. His device was an anchor held by a hand issuing from clouds, with two sprigs of laurel, and the motto ' in an oval Anchora Spei,' the whole enclosed frame. Vautrollier was succeeded in business by his his apprentice, Richard Field, who shortly after master's death married the widow, Jacqueline Vautrolhcr, and thus secured a good business. Field was a native of Stratford-on-Avon, and therefore a fellow-townsman of Shakespeare's, whose first poem, Venus and Adonis, he printed for Harrison in 1593. But we have no knowledge of any inter- course between them. Field succeeded to the stock of his predecessor, and his work is free from the haste and slovenly appearance so general at that time. Another work from his press was Puttcnham's Arte of English there Poesy, 1589, 4to. The first edition, of which is a copy in the British Museum, had no author's name, but was dedicated by the printer to Lord Burghloy. In tlic second book, four pages were suppressed. They are inserted in the copy under notice, but are not paged. This edition also contained as a frontispiece a portrait of tlie Queen. Another notable work of Field's was Sir John Harrington's translation of Orlando Furioso (1591, with fol.). This book had an elaborate frontispiece, 96 English Printing a portrait of the translator, and thirty-six full-page engraved illustrations, copied from those in an Italian edition. The text was printed in double columns, and each verse of the Argument was enclosed in a border of printers' ornaments. A second edition, alike in almost every respect, passed through the same press in 1607. In 1594 Field printed a second edition of Venus and Adonis, and the first edition of Lucrece. His later work included David

Hume's Daphne-Amaryllis (1605, 4to), Chapman's translation of the Odyssey (1614, folio), and an edition of Virgil in quarto in 1620. Foremost among the later men of this century stands Christopher Barker, the queen's printer, who was born about 1529, and is said to have been grand-nephew to Sir Christopher Barker, Garter King-at-Arms. Originally a member of the Drapers' Company, he began to publish books in 1569 (Arber,

1. p. 398), and to print in 1575, and purchased from Sir Thomas Wilkes his patent to print the Old and New Testaments in English. Barker issued in 1578 a circular offering his large Bible to the London Companies at the rate of 24s. each bound, and 20s. unbound, the clerks of the various companies to receive 4^. apiece for every Bible sold, and the hall of each company that took ;^40 worth to receive a presentation copy (Lemon's Catal. of Broadsides). In 1582 Barker sent to Lord Burghley an account of the various printing monopolies granted since the beginning of the reign, and expresses himself freely John Day's Contemporaries 97 on them. He also attempted to suppress the printers in Cambridge University. In and after 1588 he carried on his business by deputies, George Bishop and Ralph Newbery, and in the following year, on the disgrace of Sir Thomas Wilkes, he obtained an exclusive patent for himself and his son to print all official documents, as well as Bibles and Testaments. At one time Barker had no fewer than five presses, and between 1575 and 1585 he printed as many as thirty-eight editions of the Scriptures. Christopher Barker died in 1599, and was succeeded in his post of royal printer by Robert Barker, his eldest son. On the 23rd June 1586 was issued The Newe De- crees of the Starre Chamber for orders in Printing, which is reprinted in full in the second volume of Arber's Transcripts, pp. 807-812. It was the most important enactment concerning printing of Queen EUzabeth's reign, and formed the model upon which all subsequent official acts for the printers' un-

doing were framed. Its chief clauses were these : It restricted all printing to London and the two Universities. The number of presses then in London was to be reduced to such proportions as the Arch- bishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London should think sufficient. No books were to be printed without being licensed, and gave the wardens the right to search all premises on suspicion. The penalties were imprisonment and defacement of stock. G CHAPTER VI

PROVINCIAL PRESSES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 1

In the first half of the sixteenth century, before the incorporation of the Stationers' Company and the subsequent restriction of printing to London and the Universities, there were nine places in England where the art was carried on. Taking them chrono- logically, the earliest was the city of York. Fred- erick Freez was at work there in 1497 as a stationer, and is mentioned in a lawsuit of 15 10 as a book-

printer, but nothing has been found with his imprint. The first printer in the city of York who can be traced with certainty was Hugo Goez. In 1509-10 he printed an edition of the Directorium Sacerdotum, dated in the colophon February i8th, 1509, of which two copies are known. It was printed with a fount of type that had belonged to Wynkyn de Worde. Two school-books, a Donatus Minor and an Acci- dence, of which no copies can now be found, are also said to have been printed by him, and it is believed that he was for a time in partnership in London with

* For the materials of this chapter free use has been made of Mr. AUnutt's series of papers contributed to llie second volume of Biblio- graphica, and Mr. E. G. Duffs English Provincial Printers, &c., 1912, to whom my thanks are due. 98 Provincial Presses 99 a bookseller named Henry Watson (E. G. Duff, Early Printed Books). Ames, in his Typographical Antiquities, mentions a broadside with a woodcut of a man on horseback with a spear in his right hand, and a shield with the arms of France in his left, and

" the colophon Enprynted at Beverlay in the Hye- gate by me Hewe Goes,' with his mark, or rebus, of a great H and a goose. This has perished, but the H and the goose are found on a curiously stamped wall- paper recently found at Christ's College, Cambridge, and described by Mr. Charles Sayle in The Library. Another printer in York, of whom it is possible to speak with certainty, was Ursyn Milner. Born ' ' in 1481, he is probably the Ursyn mentioned in the Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VH in 1502, who printed a Festuni visitationis Beate Marie Virginis, without date, but about 1513, and a Latin syntax by Robert Whitinton, entitled Editio de concinnitate grammatices et construciione noviter impressa, with the date December 20th, 15 16, and a woodcut that had belonged to Wynkyn de W'orde. Milner used as a device a shield hanging from a tree, with a bear and an ass as supporters. The shield has a windmill, in allusion to his name Mylner. Below is a block with a ribbon and his name and trade mark. The second Oxford press began in 1517. On De- cember 4th of that year John Scolar linishcd printing Tractatus cxpositorius super libros postcrioruni Aris- totclis, by Walter l>urley. In 15 18 appeared Qucs- tiones moralissimc super lihrus cthicorum, by John lOO English Printing

Dedicus, dated May 15, 1518. On June 5th was issued Compendium questionum de luce et lumine, on June 7th Walter Burley's Tractatus perhrevis de materia et forma, on June 27th Whitinton's De Hete- roclitis nominihus. Another book from Scolar's press has been found recently, a text-book for schools entitled Opus insoluhilium. The black-letter type, initials and ornaments, used by Scolar, appear to have been obtained by him from Wynkyn de Worde. Scolar disappears from Oxford after 15 18, but in the following year a school-book, Compotus manualis ad usum Oxonicnsium, dated 5th February 1519, was printed by Charles Kyrfoth, who was working in the premises of Jo. Scolar, but nothing further is known of him.

After this the Oxford press ceased until nearly the close of the sixteenth century, the next Oxford printed book, so far as is at present known, being John Case's Speculum Moralium quaestionum in universam ethicen Aristotelis, with the colophon,

' Oxoniae ex offtcina typographica Josephi Barnesii Celeberrimae Academiae Oxoniensis Typography Anno 1585.' Joseph Barnes, the printer, had been admitted a bookseller in 1573, and on August 15th, 1584, the University lent him £100 with which to start a press. During the time that he remained printer to the University, his press was actively employed, no fewer than three hundred books, many of them in Greek and Latin, being traced to it. In 1595 ap- Provincial Presses loi

peared the first Welsh book printed at the Univer- sity, a translation into Welsh by Hugh Lewis of O. Wermueller's Spiritual and Most Precious Pearl, and in 1596 two founts of Hebrew letter were used by Barnes, but the stock of this letter was small. In 1528, John Scolar, no doubt the same with the Oxford printer, is found at Abingdon, where he a for the use of the there printed Breviary abbey ; only one copy has survived, and is now at Em- manuel College, Cambridge. The first Cambridge printer was John Lair of Sieburg, a town near Cologne. He always called himself John Siberch. In 1520-21 the University lent him a sum of £20, probably to help him to establish his press. Nine specimens of his printing during the years 1521-22 are known. The first was the Oratio of Henry Bullock, a tract of eight quarto leaves, with a dedication dated February 13, 1521, and the date of the imprint February 152 1, so that it probably appeared between the 13th and 28th of that month. The type used was a new fount of Roman. The book had no ornamentation of any kind, neither device nor initial letters. A facsimile of this book, with an introduction and

bibliographical study of Siberch's productions, was issued by the late Henry Bradshaw in 1886. The second book, Cuiiisdam fidelis Christiani cpistola ad Christianas omnes, by Augustine, shows the title between two upright woodcuts, each containing scenes from the Last Judgment. It contained the I02 English Printing lirst movable Greek type used in England. The third book, an edition of Lucian, has a boldly executed architectural border. The fifth book from

Siberch's press was the Libellus de Conscribendis epistolis, autore D. Erasmo, printed between the 22nd of this the and 31st October 1521 ; contains privilege which, it is believed, he obtained from Bishop Fisher. Siberch was also a bookbinder, and he used a signed roll, and two decorative panel stamps. Nothing is heard of him after 1523-24. In the far west of England a press was established in the monastery of Tavistock, in Devon, of which two curious examples are preserved. The first is The Boke of Comfort, called in laten Boetius de Consolationc philosophic. Translated into English tonge . . . Enprcnted in the exempt monastery of Tauestock in Denshyre, By me Dan Thomas Rycharde, monke of the sayde monastery, To the instant desyre of the ryght worshypful esquyer Mayster Robert Langdon. Anno d.' M.Dxxv., 4to. The Bodleian Library at Oxford has two imperfect copies of this book, and a third, also imperfect, is in the library of Exeter College, Oxford. The latter college is also fortunate in possessing the only known copy of the second book, which has this title : —

Here foloweth the confirmation of the Charter per- teynynge to all the tynners wythyn the Cofity of devon- shyre, with there Statutes also made at Crockeryn- torre.

Imprented at Tavystoke ye xx day of August the Provincial Presses 103 yere of the reygne off our souerayne Lord Kyng Henry ye viii the xxvi yere, i.e. 1534. To this same year, 1534, belongs the first dated book of John Herford, the St. Albans printer. It seems probable that he was established there some years earlier, but this is the iirst certain date we have. In that year appeared a small quarto, with the title. Here begynnethe ye glorious lyfe and passion also the ofSeint Alhon prothomartyr of Englande / and con- lyfe and passion of Saint Amphahel / whiche uerted saint Alhon to the fayth of Christe, of which John Lydgate was the author. It was printed at the request of Robert Catton, abbot of the monastery, and it would seem as if Herford 's press was situated within the abbey precincts. The next book, The confutacyon of the first parte of Frythes boke . . . put forth by fohn Gwynncth clerk, 1536, 8vo, was the work of one of the monks of the abbey, who in the previous year had signed a petition to Sir Francis Brian on the state of the monastery {Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, vol. ix. p. 394). Another of the signatories to that petition was Richard Stevenage, who was at that time chamberer of the abbey, and was created abbot on the de- privation of Robert Catton in 1538. Of the three books which Herford printed in that year, two were expressly printed for Richard Stevenage. These were A Godly disputation hclwccne fustus and Pcc- cator and Senex and fuvenis, and An Epistle agaynste the enemies of poore people, both octavos, of which 104 English Printing

no copies are now known. In some of Herford's books is a curious device with the letters R.S.

intertwined on it, which undoubtedly stand for Richard Stevenage, whose reign as abbot was a short one, for on 5th December 1539 he dehvered the abbey over to Henry VIII's commissioners. Just before that event, on the 12th October, he wrote a letter to Cromwell in which the following passage

occurs : —

' Sent John Pryntare to London with Harry Pepwell, Bonere and Tabbe, of Powlles churchyard stationers, to order him at your pleasure. Never heard of the little book of detestable heresies till the stationers showed it me.' —{Letters atid Papers, Hen. VIII, vol. xiv., Pt. 2, No. 315.)

' ' The J ohn Pryntare can be none other than John Herford. 'Bonere' was a misreading for Bonham, and these three, Pepwell, Tab, and Bon- ham, all of them printers or booksellers in St. Paul's

Churchyard, were evidently sent down especially to inquire into the matter. We next hear of John Herford as in London in but 1542, meanwhile a modification of Stevenage's device was used by a London printer named Bour- man. From the Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, vol. XV. pp. 115, &c., it appears that after his retirement from the abbey, Richard Stevenage went by the of name Boreman. He is invariably spoken of as 'Stevenage alias Boreman,' so that the Nicholas Bourman, the London printer, was perhaps a relative. Provincial Presses 105

The Rev. S. Sayers in his Memoirs of Bristol, of docu- 1823, vol. ii. p. 228, states, on the authority at work ments in the city archives, that a press was in the castle in the year 1546. From this press, if it ever existed, not so much as a leaf remains. In 1547 Anthony Scoloker was established as a The printer at Ipswich. In that year he printed just reckenyng or accompt of the whole nomher of this yeares, from the heginnynge of the world, vnto present yeare of 1547. Translated out of Germaine tonge by Anthony Scoloker the 6 daye of July 1547. the His publications were chiefly small octavos, writings of Luther, Zwingli, and Ochino, printed in type of a German character and of no great merit. In 1548 he moved to London, where for a time he was in partnership with W'ilham Seres. The earhest English representation of a printing press is found on the title-page of the Ordinarye of Chris- tians, printed by Scoloker after he had settled in London. In 1548 appeared Bale's Illustrium maioris Bri- tamiice scriptorum Catalogus, its colophon stating that it was printed at Ipswich by John Overton. Some copies, however, have a statement on the title- page that it was printed at W'csel. As nothing else has ever been found printed by Overton, it is possible that the statement in the colophon was fictitious, and was inserted in order to evade the law respecting the importation of foreign books. The third printer at Ipswich was John Oswcn, io6 English Printing who was also established there in 1548. Ten books can be traced to his press there. The first was The Myiide of the Godly and excellent lerned man M. Jhon Caluy?te what a Faithful man, whiche is instructe in the Worde of God ought to do, dwellinge amongest the Papistes. Imprinted at ippyswiche by me John Oswen. 8vo. This was followed by Calvin's Brief declaration of the fained sacrament commonly called the extreame unction. The remainder of his books were of a theological character. Oswen left Ipswich about Christmas 1548, and is next found at Worcester, where, on the 30th January 1549, ^^ printed A Consultarie for all Christians most godly and ernestly warnying al people to beware least they

beare the name of Christians in vayne. Now first imprinted the XXX day of Januarie Anno M.D. xlix. At Worceter by John Oswen. Cum priuilegio Regali ad imprimefidum solum. Per scptennium. The privilege, which was dated January 6th, 1548-49, authorised Oswen to print all sorts of service or prayer- books and other works relating to the scriptures ' within our Principalitie of Wales and Marches of the same.' ^ He followed this up by another edition of the Domestycal or Household Sermons of Christopher Hcgcndorff, which was printed on the last day of February 1549.

* Forty-second Report of the Worcester Diocesan Arch, and Archaeo-

' logical Society. Paper by Rev. J. R. Burton on Early Worcester- shire Printers and Books.' Provincial Presses 107

Then came his first important undertaking, a quarto edition of The boke of common prater. Im- printed the xxiv day of May Anno mdxlix. The foHo edition appeared in July of the same year. Two months later he printed an edition of the Psalter or Psalmes of David, 4to. On January 12, 1550, appeared a quarto edition of the New Testament, of which there is a copy in Balliol College Library, and this was followed in the same year by Zwingli's Short translated Veron a Pathway e, by John ; by translation by Edward Aglionby of IMathew Gri- balde's Notable atid marveilous epistle, and the Godly sayings of the old a uncient fathers, compiled by John Veron. With the exception of another edition of the Book of Common Prayer in 1552, nothing appears to have been printed by Oswen from May 1551 till May 1553. The last we hear of him is in 1553. when he printed an edition of the Statutes of 6th Edward VI, and An Homelye to read in the tyme of pestylence. What became of Oswen is not known. He very likely went abroad on the accession of Queen Mary. In Kent there was a press at Canterbury, from which eleven books are known to have been printed between 1549 '^^^ 1556. John Mychell, the printer of these, began work as a bookbinder in the ward of 13urgatc in 1530. In a law-suit, in which he was defendant, in 1540, he is

' ' described as bukc prynter of Canterbury, and it seems almost certain that he was the printer in St. io8 English Printing

Augustine's who printed A goodly narration how St. Augustine the Apostle of England raysed two dead bodies at Longcompton, which Maunsell noted as

' printed at St. Austen's at Canturburie.' If he was at work in Canterbury in 1540, it was probably after that date that he moved to London, and worked at the Long Shoppe in the Poultry. In 1549 he appears to have returned to Canterbury, where he printed a quarto edition of the Psalms, with the colophon, ' Printed at Canterbury in Saynt Paules paryshe by John Mychell.' In 1552 he issued A Breuiat Cron- icle contayninge all the Kynges from Brute to this daye, and in 1556, the Articles of Cardinal Pole's Visita- tion. He also issued several minor theological tracts without dates.

The Norwich press began about 1566, when Anthony de Solemne, or Solempne, set up a press among the refugees who had fled from the Nether- lands and taken refuge in that city. Most of his books were printed in Dutch, and all of them are excessively rare. The earliest was : —

Der Siecken Troost, Ondcrwijsinghe om gewillich- lick te steruen. Troostinghe j om den siecken totte rechten gheloue ende betrouwen in Christo te onder- bekenisse wijsen. Ghemeyn der so7idcn / met j scoon gebeden. Ghedruct in faer ons Heeren. Anno 1566. The only known copy of the book is in Trinity College Library, Dublin. The Psalms of David in Dutch appeared in 1568, and the New Testament in the same year. Provincial Presses 109

Solempne was also the printer of certain Tables concerning God's word, by Antonius Corranus, pastor of the Spanish Protestant congregation at Antwerp. It was printed in four languages, Latin, French, Dutch, and English. The only known specimen of Solempne 's printing in the English language is a broadside now in the

Bodleian : — Certayne versis—written by Thomas Brooke Getle- the his the man j in tyme of imprysdment j daye at Norwich the before his deathe j who sufferyd 30 of August 1570. Imprynted at Norwiche in the Paryshe de of Saynet Andrewe / by Anthony Solempne 1570- In the same year he also printed Eenen Calendier a tract of Historiael j eewelick gheducrende, 8vo, eight leaves printed in black and red, of which there are copies in the library of Trinity College, Dubhn, and the Bodleian. There is then a gap of eight years in his work, the next book found being a sermon, printed in 1578, Het tweedc boeck vande sermoenen des wel vermacrden Predicant B. Cornelis Adriaensen van Dordrecht minrc-

broedcr tot Briiggcs. Of this there are two copies known, one in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. The last book traced to Solempne 's press is Chronyc. llislorie der Ncdcrlandtschcr Oorlogcn. Gc- driict tot Norrtwitz na dc copic van Basel, Anno 1579, 8vo, of which there remain copies in the Bod- iio English Printing leian and another University Library, Cambridge ; was in the private collection of Lord Amherst. In 1583, two years before the resumption of printing at Oxford, after a similar interval another press was started at Cambridge, and, on May 3rd of that year, Thomas Thomas was appointed University printer. His career was marked by many difficulties. The Company of Stationers at once seized his press as an infringement of their privileges, and this in the face of the fact that for many years the University had possessed the royal licence though hitherto it had not been used. The Bishop of London, writing to Burghley, declared on hearsay

' evidence that Thomas was a man vtterlie ignor- aunte in printinge.' The University protested, and as it was clearly shown that they held the royal privilege, the Company were obliged to submit, but they did the Cambridge printer all the injury they could by freely printing books that were his sole copyright (Arber's Transcripts, vol. ii. pp. 782, 813, 819-20). He printed for the use of scholars small editions of classical works, and he edited Ovid's FabulcE in 1584. In 1585 he printed in octavo the Latin Grammar of Peter Ramus, and in 1587 the Latin Grammar of James Carmichael in quarto (Hazlitt, Collections and Notes, 3rd series, p. 17). He was also the compiler of a Dictionary, which he printed about 1588. Five editions were called for before the end of the century. Thomas died in August 1588, and the University, Provincial Presses 1 1 1 on the 2nd November, appointed John Legate his ' successor, as he is reported to be skilful in the art of printing books.' On the 26th April 1589 he received as an apprentice Cantrell Legge, who afterwards succeeded him. From 1589 to 1609 he appears in the parish books of St. Mary the Great, Cambridge, as paying 5s. a year for the rent of a shop. He had the exclusive right of printing Thomas's Dictionary, and he printed most of the books of William Perkins. He subsequently left Cambridge and settled in London. The books printed by these two Cambridge printers show that they had a good variety of Roman and italic, very regularly cast, besides some neat ornaments and initials. Whether these founts belonged to the University, or to Thomas in the first place, is not clear. Nor do these books bear out the Bishop of London's statement as to Thomas of the being ignorant printing ; on contrary, the presswork was such as could only have been done by a skilled workman. In addition to the foregoing, there were several secret presses at work in various parts of the country during the second half of the century. The Cart- wright controversy, which began in 1572 with the publication of a tract entitled An Admonition to the Parliament, was carried out by means of a secret press at which John Stroud is believed to have worked, and had as assistants two men named Lacy and Asplyn. The Stationers' Company employed 112 English Printing Toy and Day to hunt it out, with the result that it was seized at Hempstead, probably Hemel Hempstead, Herts, or Hempstead near Saffron W'aldcn, Essex. The type was handed over to Bynneman, who used it in printing an answer to Cartwright's book. It was in consequence of his action in this matter that John Day was in danger of being killed by Asplyn. A few years later books by Jesuit authors were printed from a secret press which, from some notes written by F. Parsons in 1598, and now preserved in the Hbrary of Stonyhurst College, began opera- tions at Greenstreet House, East Ham, but was afterwards removed to Stonor Park. The overseer of this press was Stephen Brinckley, who had several men under him, and the most noted book issued from it was Campion's Rationes Decern, with

' the colophon, CosmopoH 1581.' Finally, there was the Marprelate press, of which Robert W'aldegrave was the chief printer. He was the son of a Worcestershire yeoman, and put himself apprentice to WilUam Griffith, from the 24th June 1568, for eight years. He was therefore out of his time in 1576, and in 1578 there is entered to him a book entitled A Castell for the Soul. His subsequent publications were of the same character, including, in 1581, The Confession and Declaration of John Knox, the Confession of the Protestants of Scotland, and a sennon of Luther's. Waldegrave was frequently in trouble for printing Puritan Provincial Presses 113 literature. In 1584 he was thrown into the White Lyon prison in Southwark for six weeks, and again in the following year for twenty weeks. In 1588 he printed a tract of John Udall's, entitled The State of the Church of Englaitd. His press was seized and his type defaced, but he succeeded in carrying off some of it to the house of a Mrs. Crane at East Molesey, where he printed another of Udall's the first tracts, and of the Marprelate series : read over D. John Bridges for it is a worthye work. Printed oversea in Europe within two furlongs of a Bounsing Priest, at the cost and charges of M. Mar- prelate, gentleman. From East Molesey the press was afterwards removed to Fawsley, near Daventry, and from thence to Coventry. But the hue and cry after the hidden press was so keen that another shift was made to Wolston Priory, the seat of Sir R. Knightley, and finally Waldegrave fled over sea, taking with him his black-letter type. He went first to Rochelle, and thence to Edinburgh, where in 1590 he was appointed King's printer. The Marprelate press was afterwards carried on by Samuel Hoskins or llodgkys, who had as his workmen Valentine Symmes and Arthur Thomlyn. The last of the Marprelate tracts, The Protestacyon of Martin Marprelate, was printed at Hasclcy, near Warwick, about September 1589.

II 114 English Printing

PRINTING IN SCOTLAND AND IRELAND DURING THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY ^

On the 15th September 1507, King James IV of Scotland granted to his faithful subjects, Walter Chepman and Androw Myllar, burgesses of Edin- burgh, leave to import a printing-press and letter, and gave them licence to print law books, brevi- aries, and so forth, more particularly the Breviary of William, Bishop of Aberdeen. Walter Chepman was a general merchant, and probably his chief part in the undertaking at the outset was of a financial character. Androw Myllar had for some years carried on the business of a bookseller in Edinburgh, and books were printed for him in

Rouen by L. Hostingue. There is, moreover, evidence that Myllar himself learnt the art of print-

ing in that city. The printing-house of the firm in Edinburgh was in the Southgait (now the Cowgate), and they lost no time in setting to work, devoting themselves chiefly to printing some of the popular metrical tales of England and Scotland. A volume containing eleven such pieces, most of them printed in 1508, is preserved in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. Among the pieces found in it are—Sir Eglamoure

* For the material of this chapter I am chiefly indebted to the valuable work of Messrs. Dickson and Edmond's Annals of Scottish Printing. Scottish Presses 115

of Artoys, Maying or desport of Chaucer, Buke of Gude Counsale to the Kyng, Flytting of Dunbar & Kennedy, and Twa Marrit Wemen and the wedo.

Three founts of black letter, somewhat resembling in size and shape those of Wynkyn de Worde, were used in printing these books, and the devices of both men are found in them. That of Chepman was a copy of the device of the Paris printer, Pi- gouchet, while Myllar adopted the punning device of a windmill with a miller bearing sacks into the mill, with a small shield charged with three fleur- de-lys in each of the upper corners. After printing the above-mentioned works, ]\Iyllar disappears, and the famous Breviarimn Aberdonense, the work for which the King had mainly granted the licence, was finished in 1509-10 by Chepman alone. It is an unpretentious little octavo, printed in double columns, in red and black, as became a breviary, but with no special marks of typographical beauty. Four copies of it are known to exist, but none of these arc perfect. Chepman printed nothing else, but continued his business as a merchant, and died about 1529. In the Glamis copy of the Brcviariwn, Dr. David Laing discovered a single sheet of eight leaves of a book with the im-

print :

Iniprcssu Ldi)ibiir\;i per Johaiic Slury no)iiinc dr matidato Karoli Stulc. Nothing more, however, is known of this John Story. The next Scottish printer was Thomas Davidson, 1 1 6 English Printing who is mentioned in a deed of 1536, and in 1540 issued The Chronicles of Scotland. In 1541-42 he printed The New Actis and Constitutionis of Parlia- ment maid Be the Rycht Excellent Prince James the Fift King of Scottis, 1540. Davidson's press, which was situated ' above the nether bow, on the north syde of the gait,' was also very short-lived, and of it are in existence one very few examples now ; of these, a quarto of four leaves, with the title Ad Serenissimum Scotorum Regem Jacohum Quintum de stiscepto Regni Regimine a diis feliciter ominato Strena, is the earliest instance of the use of Roman type in Scotland. The next printer heard of is John Scot or Skot, who is not to be identified with his London namesake. Between 1552 and 1571 Scot printed a great many books, most of them of a theological character. Among them was Ninian Winziet's Certane tractatis for Reformatioune of Doctryne and Maneris, a quarto, printed on the 2ist May 1562, and the same author's Last Blast of the Trumpet. For these he was arrested and thrown into prison, and his printing materials were handed over to Thomas Bassandyne. In 1568 he was at liberty again, and printed for Henry Charteris The Warkes of the famous & vorthie Knicht Schir David Lyndesay ; while among his numerous undated works is found Lyndsay's Ane Dialog hetwix Experience and Ane Courtier, of which he printed two editions, the second containing several other poems by the same author. Scottish Presses 117 Scot was succeeded by Robert Lekpreuik, who began to print in 1561. His first dated book, a small black-letter octavo of twenty-four pages, is called The Confessione of the fayght and doctrin heleued and professed by the Protestantes of the Realme of Scotland. Imprinted at Edinburgh be Robert

Lekpreuik, Cum privilegio , 1561. In the following year the Kirk lent him money with which to print the Psalms. The copy now in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, bound with the Book of Cotnmon Order printed by Lekpreuik in the same year, probably belongs to this edition. Two years later, in 1564-65, he obtained a licence under the Privy Seal to print the Acts of Parlia- ment of Queen Mary and the Psalms of David in Scottish metre. Of this edition of the Psalms there is a perfect copy in the library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Again, in 1567, Lekpreuik obtained the royal licence as King's printer for twenty years, during which time he was to have the monopoly of printing Donatus pro pueris, Rudi- mentis of Pelisso, Acts of Parliament, Chronicles of the Realm, the book called Rcgia Majestas, the Psalms, the llomclies, and Rudimenta Artis Gram- maticae. Among his other work of that year may be noticed a ballad entitled The testament and tragedie of vmquhile King Henry Stewart of gude memory, a broadside of sixteen twelve-line stanzas, from the pen of Robert Sempil. A copy ol this is in the 1 1 8 English Printing

British Museum (Cott. Caligula, C. i. fol. 17). In 1568 there was danger of plague in Edinburgh, and Lekpreuik printed a small octavo of twenty- four leaves, in Roman type, with the title, Ane breve description of the Pest, Quhair in the Cavsis signes and sum speciall preservatiovn and cvre thairof ar contenit. Set furth be Maister Gilbert Skeyne, Doctoure in Medicine. In 1570 he printed for Henry Charteris a quarto edition of the Actis and Deides of Sir William Wallace, and in 1571 The Actis and Lyfe of Robert Bruce. This was printed early in the year, as on the 14th April Secretary Maitland made a raid upon Lekpreuik 's premises, under the belief that he was the printer of Buchanan's Chameleon. The printer, however, had received timely warning and retired to Stirling, where, before the 6th of August, he printed Buchanan's Admonition, and also a letter from John Knox 'To his loving Brethren.' His sojourn there was very short, as on the 4th Sep- tember Stirling was attacked and Lekpreuik thereupon withdrew to St. Andrews, where his press was active throughout the year 1572 and part of 1573- In the month of April 1573 Lekpreuik returned to Edinburgh and printed Sir William Drury's Regulations for the army under his command. But in January 1573-74 he was thrown into prison and his press and property confiscated. How long he remained a prisoner is not clear, but in all probability until after the execution of the Scottish Presses 119

Regent Morton in 1581. In that year he printed the following books—Patrick Adamson's Cate- chismus Latino Carmine Redditus et in lihros qua- tuor digesius, a small octavo of forty leaves, printed in Fowler's Answer to Roman type ; John Hamilton, a of leaves a Declaration quarto twenty-eight ; and without place or printer's name, but attributed to his press : after this nothing more is heard of him. Contemporary with Lekpreuik was Thomas Bassandyne, who is believed to have worked both in Paris and Leyden before setting up as a printer in Edinburgh. His first appearance in 1568 was not a very creditable one. It occurs in an order of the General

Assembly, on the ist July, directing Bassandyne to call in a book entitled The Fall of the Roman Kirk,

' in which the king was called supreme head of the Primitive Church,' and also ordered to delete an obscene song called Welcome Fortune which he had printed at the end of a psalm-book. They further appointed Mr. Alexander Arbuthnot to revise these things. In 1574 Bassandyne printed a quarto edition of Sir David Lindsay's Works, of which he had 510 copies in stock at the time of his death. On the 7th March 1574-75, in partnership with Alexander Arbuthnot (who was not the same as the Alexander Arbuthnot who had been appointed to exercise a supervision of Bassandyne 's books in I20 English Printing

1568), Bassandyne laid proposals before the General Assembly for printing an edition of the Bible, the first ever printed in Scotland. The General As- sembly gave him hearty support, and required every parish to provide itself with one of the new Bibles as soon as they were printed. On the other hand, the printers were to deliver a certain number of copies before the last of March 1576, and the cost of it was to be £5. The terms of this agreement were not carried out by the printers. The New Testament only was completed and issued in 1576, with the name of Thomas Bassandyne as the printer. The whole Bible was not completed until the close of the year 1579, and Bassandyne did not live to see it appear, as he died on the i8th October 1577. Like most of his predecessors, Bassandyne was a bookseller and on of their ; pp. 292-304 work Annals of Scottish Printing, Messrs. Dickson and Edmond have printed the Inventory of the goods he possessed, including the whole of his stock of books, which is of the greatest interest and value. A few such inventories have been met with in the case of English University printers and booksellers. Bassandyne used as his device a modification of the serpent and anchor mark of John Crespin of Geneva.

Arbuthnot was now left to carry on the business was alone, and made King's printer in 1579. But he was a slow, slovenly, and ignorant workman, and the General Assembly were so disgusted with the Scottish Presses 121 delivery of the Bible and the wretched appearance of his work, that, on the 13th February 1579-80, they decided to accept the offer of Thomas Vau- trolher, a London printer, to establish a press in Edinburgh. Arbuthnot died on September ist, 1585. His device was a copy of that of Richard Jugge of London, and is believed to have been the work of a Flemish artist, Assuerus vol Londersel.

Another printer in Edinburgh between 1574-80 was John Ross. He worked chiefly for Henry Charteris, for whom he printed the Catechisme in 1574, and a metrical version of the Psalms in 1578. For the same bookseller he also printed a poem, The seuin Seages, Tra?islatit out of prois in Scottis meter he Johne Rolland in Dalkeith, a quarto, now so rare that only one copy is known, that in the Britwell Library. In 1579 Ross printed Ad vinilentum Archibaldi Hamiltonii Apostatac Dialogum, De confiisione Calu- iniancB scctco apud Scotos, impie conscriptum ortho- doxa responsio Thoma Sinetonio Scoto auctore, a quarto, printed in Roman letter, and followed it up with two editions of Buchanan's De Jure Regni apud Scotos dialogus. Ross used a device showing Truth with an open book in her right hand, a lighted candle in her left,

' surrounded with the motto Vincet tandem Veritas.' This device was afterwards used by both Charteris and W'aldcgrave. Ross died in 1580, when his stock ->- 122 English Printing passed into the hands of Henry Charteris, who began printing in the following year. As we have seen, he employed Scot, Lekpreuik, and Ross to print for him. Up to 1581 he confined himself to bookselling. His printing was confined to various editions of Sir David Lindsay's Works and theological tracts. He used two devices, that of Ross, and another em- blematical of Justice and Religion, with his initials. He died on the 9th August 1599. In 1580, at the express invitation of the General Assembly, Thomas Vautrollier visited Edinburgh, and set up as a bookseller, no doubt with the view of seeing what scope there was likely to be for a printer with a good stock of type. The Treasurer's accounts for this period show that he received royal patronage. On his second visit, in 1584, he went armed with a letter to George Buchanan from Daniel Rogers, and set up a press in Edinburgh. But in spite of the support of the Assembly and the patronage that an introduction to Buchanan must have brought him, he evidently soon found there was not enough business in Edinburgh to support a printer, for he remained there little more than a year, when he again returned to London. During his short career as a printer in Edinburgh he printed at least eight books, of which the most important were Henry Balnave's Confession of Faith, 1584, 8vo, and King James's Essayes of a Prentice in the Divine Art of Poesie, 4to. Scottish Presses 123

Scotland's next important printer was Robert \\'aldegrave, who, after his adventures as a secret printer in England, set up a press in Edinburgh in 1590, and continued printing there till the close of the century. One of his first works was a quarto in Roman type entitled The Confession of Faith, Subscribed by the Kingis Maiestie and his householde : Togither with the Copie of the Bandc, maid touching the m-ain- tenaimce of the true Religion. Among his other work, which was chiefly theological, may be mentioned King James's Demonologie, 1597, 4to, and the first edition of the Basilikon Doron, in quarto, of which it is said only seven copies were printed. Contemporary with him was a Robert Smyth, who married the widow of Thomas Bassandyne, and who in 1599 received licence to print the follow-

' ing books : — The double and single catechism, the plane Donct, the haill four pairtes of grammar according to Sebastian, the Dialauges of Corderius, the celect and familiar Epistles of Cicero, the bulk callit Sevin Seagcs, the Ballat bulk, the Secund rudimcntis of Dunbar, the Psalmcs of Buchanan and Psalmc buik.' The only known copy of Smyth's edition of Rolland's Seven Sages is that in the British Museum. The last of the Scottish printers of the sixteenth century was Robert Chartcris, the son and successor of Henry Chartcris, but he did not succeed to the 124 English Printing business until 1599, and his work lies chiefly in the succeeding century. It may safely be said that the earliest press in Ireland of which there is any authentic notice was that of Humphrey Powell, of which there is the following note in the Act Books of the Privy Council (New Series, vol. iii. p. 84), under date i8th July 1550 :—

'A warrant to to deliver xx^' , unto Powell the printer, him the given by Kinges Majestic towarde his setting up in Ireland.'

Nothing is known of Humphrey Powell's work in England beyond several small theological works issued between 1548 and 1549 from a shop in Hol- born above the Conduit.

On his arrival in Ireland he set up his press in Dublin, and printed there the Prayer Book of

Edward VI with the colophon : —

'Imprinted by Humphrey Powell, printer to the Kynges Maieste, in his Highnesse realme of Ireland dwellynge in the citie of Dublin in the great toure by the Crane Cum Privelegio ad imprimendum solum. Anno Domini, M.D.L.I.'

his Timperley, in Encyclopedia (p. 314), says that Powell continued printing in Dublin for fifteen years, and removed to the southern side of the river to St. Nicholas Street.

In 1571 the first fount of Irish type was presented by Queen Ehzabeth to John O 'Kearney, treasurer of St. Patrick's, to print the Catechism which appeared in that year from the press of John Irish Presses 125

Franckton. (Reed, Old English Letter Fotindries, pp. 75, 186-7.) It was not a pure Irish character, but a hybrid fount consisting for the most part of Roman and itahc letters, with the seven distinctly Irish sorts added. A copy of the Catechism is exhibited in the King's Library, British Museum, and in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cam- bridge, is a copy of a broadside entitled Poem on the last Judgement, sent over to the Archbishop of Canterbury as a specimen. This type was afterwards used to print William O'Donnell's, or Daniel's, Irish Testament in 1602. CHAPTER VII

THE STUART PERIOD

1603-164O

On the accession of James 1st the Company of Stationers of London obtained several new privileges. The patent for printing Almanacs and Prognostications, previously granted to James Roberts and Richard Watkins, was transferred to the Company, and down to the present day has been the source of a large revenue to it. At the same time it obtained the copyright in Primers and Psalters, which had been held by the successors of Day and Seres, in itself a large and profitable business. These works formed the basis of what was termed

' ' the English Stock of the Company, which was held by its members, according to their rank, in shares of proportional value. It was, in fact, a company within a company. Ballads formed another stock, and about this time two others were created, one in Latin books, by which the Company sought to engross the whole of that trade, and an

' ' Irish stock, in connection with which the printing office in Dublin was bought by the Company, and a royal privilege obtained for printing and import- 126 The Stuart Period 127

' ' ing books into Ireland. Both the Latin and

' ' Irish ventures turned out failures, involving the shareholders in heavy losses, and were afterwards dropped. At the same time, the privileges of Robert Barker, son and successor to Christopher Barker, and King's printer by reversion, were increased by grants for printing all statutes, hitherto the monopoly of other printers. On the other hand, Robert Barker did not retain the sole possession of the royal business, John Norton being appointed King's printer in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew in 1603. Robert Barker had been made free of the Sta- tioners' Company in 1589, when he joined his father's assigns, George Bishop and Ralph Newbery, in the management of the business. He was admitted to the livery of the Company in 1592, and upon his father's death succeeded to the office of King's printer by reversion. In 1601-2 he was warden of the Company, and tilled the office of Master in 1O05 and 1606. In 1616, Robert and his son Christopher, who had married a daughter of Bonham Norton, sold their shares in the King's Printing House to Bonham Norton and John Bill. Law-suits followed, and the imprints were constantly changed.^ Down to 1616 Robert Barker's name alone appeared. In that year they bore the names of Robert Barker and John Bill. From

' For a full account of the KinR's rrinling House under the Stuarts see The Library, Octol>cr 1901, i>|i. .^53 75- 128 English Printing

' July 1617 until May 1619 they ran Bonham Norton and John Bill,' then they became for a few ' months Robert Barker and John Bill,' when they

' once more became Bonham Norton and John Bill.' This arrangement was confirmed on the accession of Charles I, but in 1629 the Court of Chancery gave its final decision in favour of Robert Barker, and after October 30th in that year the imprints ' were again altered to Robert Barker and J ohn Bill.' In 1634 Robert Barker mortgaged his moiety of the office to Miles Fletcher and his partners, and in 1635 Barker was committed to the King's Bench Prison as a debtor, and died there in January but as his stiU 1645/6 ; patent was running, his name continued to appear as King's printer during his imprisonment. Robert Barker's work was almost entirely of an official character, the printing of the Scriptures, Book of Common Prayer, Statutes and Proclama- tions. His most important undertaking was the so-

' ' called authorised version of the Bible in 161 1. It never was authorised in any official sense. The revision was proposed at a conference of divines held at Hampton Court in 1604. The King manifested great interest in the scheme. The whole cost of printing was borne by Robert Barker, who was financed by Bonham Norton, John Norton and John Bill in return for a share in the profits The Stuart Period 129 of the office. Like all previous editions of the Scriptures in folio, this Bible of 1611 was printed in great primer black letter. It was preceded by an elaborately engraved title-page, the work of C. Boel of Richmond, and had also an engraved map of Canaan, partly the work of John Speed. Barker also possessed the handsome pictorial initial letters which had been used by John Day, and many of the ornaments and initials previously in the office of Henry Bynneman. John Norton was the son of Richard Norton, a yeoman of Billingsley, county Shropshire, nephew of William Norton, and cousin of Bonham Norton, and was thus connected by marriage with the sixteenth-century bookseller, William Bonham. He was three times Master of the Stationers' Company, in 1607, 1610, and 1612. He began business as a bookseller in St. Paul's Churchyard, and was one of the largest capitalists in the trade. In 1587 he set up a booksclhng business in Edinburgh, but gave this up about 1596. On his death, in 1612, he left £1000 to the Company of Stationers, not, as is generally stated, as a legacy of his own, but rather as trustee of the be(iucst of his uncle, William Norton. The bulk of his property he left to his cousin, Bonham Norton (P.C. C. 5 Capell). In addition to the patent for printing (ireek, Latin and Hebrew books, John Norton also acquired from Francis Rea the patent for grammars, and while 130 English Printing

these and many other books bear the imprint,' Ex- cudebat Joannes Norton,' there is ample evidence that he was not a printer, but simply found the capital, and employed others to print for him, notably Melchisidec Bradwood and his partners at the Eliot's Court printing-house in the Old Bailey. Thus the title-page to Abraham Ortelius, Theatrum Orbis

' Terrarum, 1606, states that it was printed by John ' but the at the end ' Printed Norton ; colophon runs, for John Norton and John Bill,' and the internal evidence proves that it was printed at the Eliot's Court Press.

John Norton was also the publisher, but certainly not the printer, of the magnificent edition of the Works of St. Chrysosiom, in eight folio volumes, printed at Eton in 1610, at the charge of Sir Henry Savile, the editor. The late T. B. Reed, in his

History of the Old English Letter Foundries (p. 140),

' speaks of this edition as one of the most splendid examples of Greek printing in this country,' and further describes the types with which it was

' printed as a great primer body, very elegantly and regularly cast, with the usual numerous ligatures and abbreviations which characterised the Greek

' typography of that period (p. 141). Sir Henry Saville obtained this Greek fount from Moret, the the rest of the or- Antwerp printer ; type, initials, naments and devices were those of Melchisidec

Bradwood, who took presses and workmen down to Eton for the purpose. The Stuart Period 131

The title-page to the first volume was handsomely engraved, and a highly ornamental series of initial letters were used in it. The work is said to have cost its promoter £8000. John Bill was the son of W' alter Bill, husband- man, of Wenlock, county Salop, and on the 25th July 1592 he apprenticed himself to John Norton. In 1601 he was admitted a freeman of the Company.

He was a man of shrewd business ability, and was recommended to Sir Thomas Bodley, who was then founding the Bodleian library, and who employed John Bill to travel abroad and buy books for the library. This was between 1596 and 1603. Bill afterwards set up as a bookseller, and attended the great book fair at Frankfort, and was the first to publish an edition of the catalogue for circulation in England. In conjunction with John Norton and Bonham Norton he secured a share in Robert Barker's patent as King's Printer, and retained it till his death in 1630. On the 26th August of that year the whole of his stock was assigned to Mistress Joyce Norton, the widow of John Norton, and Master Whittaker. The list fills upwards of two pages of Arber's Tran-

scripts (vol. iv. pp. 283-285). The reversion of John Norton's patent for (ircck and Latin books had been granted in 1604 to Robert Barker (Uom. S. P. 160.4), but the year following Norton's death it was granted to Bonham Norton 132 English Printing for thirty years (Dom. S. P. i., vol. 72, No. 5), and he also seems to have acquired the patent for printing grammars. Bonham Norton was the only son of William Norton, stationer of London, who died in 1593, by his wife Joan, the daughter of William Bonham. He took up his freedom on the 4th February 1594, and was Master of the Stationers' Company in the years 1613, 1626, and 1629, and must have been one of the richest men in the trade. His eldest daughter, Sarah, married Christopher Barker, the eldest son of Robert Barker, in 161 5, and for many years before this event he had been assisting Barker financially, held a share in the Plouse but and Royal Printing ; in 1618 a bitter quarrel between them led to a long series of law-suits, which ended in favour of Robert Barker. Bonham Norton, having accused the Lord Keeper of receiving a bribe, was in 1630 thrown into prison and fined. Lie . died intestate on the 5th April 1635, and administration of his estate was granted to his son John on the 28th May 1636 (Ad- mon. Act Book 1636). On the 9th May 1615 an order was made by the Court of the Stationers' Company, upon complaint made by the master printers of the number of presses then at work, that only nineteen printers, exclusive of the patentees, i.e. Robert Barker, John Bill, and Bonham Norton, should exercise the craft of printing in the city of London. There is little in the work of these men, judged as specimens of the The Stuart Period 133

printer's art, to interest us, but a few may be briefly noticed.

Richard Field, the successor of Thomas Vau- trollier, and a fellow-townsman of Shakespeare, has already been spoken of in an earlier chapter. He printed many important books between 1601-1624, had two presses at work in 1615, and was Master of the Company in 1620. He maintained the high character that Vautrollier had given to the productions of his press. Felix Kingston was the son of John Kingston of Paternoster Row, and was admitted a freeman of the Stationers' Company on the 25th of June 1597, being translated from the Company of Grocers. Throughout the first half of the seventeenth century his press was never idle. He was Master of the Company in 1637. Edward Allde was the son of John Allde of the Long Shop in the Poultry. He had two presses, and printed very largely for other men, but his type and workmanship were poor. William and Isaac Jaggard are best known as the printers of the works of Shakespeare. They were associated in the production of the lirst folio in 1623, which came from the press of Isaac Jaggard, at the charges of William Jaggard, Edward I31ount, and William the editors J. Smcthwicke, Asplcy ;

being the poet's friends, J. llcmingc and H. Condcll.

In addition to being the lirst collected edition 134 English Printing of Shakespeare's works, this was in many respects a remarkable volume. The largest copies measure I3|-x8r. The title-page bears the portrait of the poet by Droeshout. The dedicatory epistle is in large italic type, and is followed by a second epistle, 'To the Readers,' in Roman. The verses in praise of the author, by Ben Jonson and others, are printed in a second fount of italic, and the Contents in a still smaller fount of the same letter.

The text, printed in double columns, is in Roman and Italic, each page being enclosed within printer's rules. Of these various types, the best is the large italic, which somewhat resembles Day's fount of the same letter. That of the text is exceedingly poor, while the setting of the type and rules leaves much to be desired. The arrangement and pagination are erratic. The book, like many other folios, was made up in sixes, and the first alphabet of signatures is correct and complete, while the second runs on regularly to the completion of the Comedies on Cc2. The Histories follow with a

' ' fresh alphabet, running from a (the third leaf is

' ' ' signed Aa3) to g,' when the printer inserted a gg ' ' of eight leaves, and then continued from h to

' ' x in sixes x ' four to the end of the (' leaves) Histories. The Tragedies begin with Troilus and Cressida, the insertion of which was evidently an afterthought, as there is no mention of it in the

' ' Contents of the volume, and the signatures of the sheets are H and HH, six leaves each, followed The Stuart Period 135 by a single leaf signed II^H. Then they start

' ' afresh with aa and proceed regularly to 'hh,' the end of Macbeth, the following signature being

' ' kk/ thus omitting the whole of ii.' In a series of interesting letters communicated to Notes ajid

Queries (8 S. vol. viii. pp. 306, 353, 429) the make-up of this volume is explained very plau- sibly. The copyright of Troilus and Cressida belonged to R. Bonian and H. W'alley, who apparently refused at first to give their sanction to its publication. But by that time it had been printed, and the sheets signed for it to follow Macbeth, so that it had to be taken out. Arrangements having at last been made for its insertion in the work, it was reprinted and inserted where it is now found. It is also surmised that the original intention was to publish the work in three parts, and to this theory the repetition of the signatures lends colour. One of the most interesting presses of the early Stuart period, both for the excellence of its work and the nature of the books that came from it, was that of William Stansby. This printer took up his freedom on the 7th January 1597, after serving a seven years' apprenticeship with John W'indet. The following April he registered a book entitled The Polycic of the Ttirkishc Empire. This little quarto was, however, printed for him by his old master, John Windet, and there is no further entry in the registers until 161 1, or fourteen years after the date at which he took up his freedom. 136 English Printing

But it would appear that he began to print in 1609 with an edition of Green's Pandosto, which was not registered. In 1611 he purchased the copyright in the books of John Windet for 13s. 4d., but three of them the Company added to its stock, with the undertaking that Stansby should always have the printing of them. One of these books was The Assize of Bread. On the 23rd February 1625 the whole of William East's copies, including music, was assigned over to him. This list of books is the longest to be found in the registers, and covers every branch of literature. About this time Stansby got into trouble with the Company for printing a seditious book, and his premises were nailed up, but eventually they were restored to him, and he continued in business until 1639, "when his stock was transferred to Richard Bishop, and eventually came into the hands of John Haviland and partners. He was the printer of the second and subse-

quent editions of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Politie, in folio the Works of ; Ben Jonson, 1616, foho ; Eadmer's Historia folio Novorum, 1623, ; Selden's Mare folio Clausuni, 1635, ; Blundeville's Exer- cises, 1622, quarto ; Coryate's Crudities, 1611, quarto. He possessed a considerable stock of type, most of it good. Some of the ornamental head-bands and initial letters that he used were of an artistic character, and were used with good effect. An The Stuart Period 137 instance of this may be seen in his edition of Hooker, 161 1, which has an engraved title-page by WilHam Hole, showing a view of St. Paul's. The page of Contents is surrounded on three sides by a border made up of odds and ends of printers' ornaments, yet, in spite of its miscellaneous character, the effect is by no means bad. The border to the title-page of the fifth book was one of a series that formed part of the stock of the Company, and were lent out to any who required them. Stansby's presswork was uniformly good, and in this respect alone he may be ranked among the best printers of his time.

Another printer of that time, Nicholas Okes, was somewhat of a refractory character, a printer of popular books at the risk of imprisonment, a class of men who were to figure largely in the events of the next few years. He is known best, perhaps, as the printer of some of the writings of Dekker, Greene, but in 1621 he and Heywood ; printed, without licence, Wither' s Motto, a tract from the pen of George Wither, which had been published by John Harriot a short time before. This satire aroused the ire of the Government, and all connected with it at once made the acquaintance of the nearest jail. In the State Papers for that year are preserved the examination of the author, the booksellers, and the printer, Nicholas Okes. Oik; of Uu; witnesses declared that Okes told him that he had printed the book with the consent of the Company, and that the 138 English Printing Master (Humphrey Lownes) had declared that if he was committed they would get him discharged. Another declared that Okes had printed two impressions of 3000 each, using the same title-page as that to the first edition, and that one of the wardens of the Company (Matthew Lownes) continued to sell the book, and called for more copies. The only defence Okes made was that he beheved the book to be duly licensed, and when challenged as to why he printed Marriot's name on the title-page, declared he simply printed the book as he found it. (S. P.

Dom. James I, vol. cxxii. Nos. 12 et seq.) On the accession of Charles I plague paralysed trade and made gaps in the ranks of the Stationers' Company. During the autumn of 1624 and the following year several noted printers died, probably from this cause. Chief among these were George Eld.. Edward Allde, and Thomas Snodham. Eld was succeeded by his partner, Miles Flessher or Fletcher, and Allde by his widow, Elizabeth. Thomas Snodham had inherited the business of Thomas East, and his widow transferred her interest in the copyrights to William Stansby, one of his executors ; but the materials of the office, that is the types, woodcut letters, and ornaments, and the presses, were sold to William Lee for £165, and shortly afterwards passed into the possession of Thomas Harper. They included a fount of black letter, and several founts of Roman and italic of all sizes, and one of Greek letter, all of which had be- The Stuart Period 139 longed to Thomas East, and were by this time the worse for wear. But the plague was at the worst only a temporary the of the the hindrance ; censorship press printers had always with them, and this, which had been comparatively mildly used during the late reign, was now in the hands of men who wielded it with severity. During the next fifteen years the printers, publishers, and booksellers of London were subjected to a persecution hitherto unknown. During that time there were few printers who did not know the inside of the Gatehouse or the Compter, or who were not subjected to heavy fines. For the literature of that age was chiefly of a religious character, and its tone mainly antagonistic to Laud and his party. All other subjects, whether philosophical, scientific, or dramatic, were sorely neglected. The later works of Bacon, the plays of Shirley and Shaker- ley Marmion, and a few classics, most of which came from the University presses, are sparsely scattered amongst the flood of theological discussion. The history of the best work in the trade in London is — Havi- practically the history of three men John land, Miles Fletcher, and Robert Young, who joined the partnership and, in addition to a share in Royal the of printing-house, obtained by purchase right printing the Abridgements to the Statutes, and bought up several large and old-established printing-houses, such as those of George Purslowe, Edward (irillin, and William Stansby. Bernard Alsop and Thomas 140 English Printing

Fawcett were also among the large capitalists of this time, while Nathaniel Butter, Nicholas Bourne, and Thomas Archer were also interested in several busi- nesses beside their own. From the press of Havi- land came editions of Bacon's Essays, in quarto, in of his 1625, 1629, 1632 ; Apophthegmes, in octavo, in of his 1625 ; Miscellanies, an edition in quarto, in 1629, and his Opera Moralia in 1638. From the press of Fletcher came the Divine Poems of Francis Quarles, in 1633, 1634, and 1638, and the Hicrogly- phikes of the life of Man, by the same author, in while 1638 ; amongst Young's pubHcations, editions of Hamlet and Romeo arid Juliet appeared in 1637. Bernard Alsop and his partner printed the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, Decker, Greene, Lodge, and Shirley, the poems of Brathwait, Breton, and Crashaw, and the writings of Fuller and More. All this good work was overshadowed by the struggle, then in progress, for rehgious liberty, and freedom of thought and expression, consequently, the books that have the most vital interest, dead and forgotten as they are to-day, are rather those which brought their authors, printers, and publishers within the clutches of the law. Three men —Henry Burton, rector of St. Matthews, Friday Street William barrister of ; Prynne, Lincoln's Inn ; and John Bastwick, surgeon, are generally looked upon as the chief of the opposition to Archbishop his but there Laud and party ; were a number of The Stuart Period 141 other writers whose works brought them into the Court of High Commission. Thus, on the 15th February 1626, Benjamin Fisher, bookseller, John Okes, Bernard Alsop, and Thomas Fawcett, printers, were examined concerning a book which they had caused to be printed and sold, called A Short View of the Long Life and reign of Henry the Third, of which Sir Robert Cotton was the author. Fisher stated in his evidence that live sheets of this book were printed by John Okes, and one other by Alsop and Fawcett, which in itself is an indication of the immense difficulty that must have attended the discovery of the printers of forbidden books. The manuscript Fisher declared he had bought from Alsop, who, in his turn, said that he bought it of

' one Ferdinando Ely, a broker in books,' for the sum of twelvepencc, and printed what was equiva- lent to a thousand copies of the one sheet delivered to him, ' besides waste.' Nicholas Okes declared that his son John had printed the book without his knowledge and while he (Nicholas) was a prisoner in the Compter. Ferdinando Ely was a second- hand bookseller in Little Britain. No very serious consequences seem to have but in the followed in this instance ; following year (1628), Henry B)Urton was charged by the same authorities with being the author of certain unlicensed books, The Baiting of the Pope's Bull, Israel's Fast, Trial of Private Devotions, Conflicts and Comforts of Conscience, A Pica to an Appeal, 142 English Printing and Seven Vials. The first of these was licensed, but the remainder were not. They were said to have been printed by Michael Sparke and William a on busi- Jones ; Sparke was bookseller, carrying ness at the sign of the Blue Bible, in Green Arbour, in little Old Bailey, and he employe^ William Jones to print for him. The parties were then warned to be careful, but on the 2nd April 1629 Sparke was arrested and thrown into the Fleet, and with him, at the same time, were charged William Jones, Augustine Mathewes, printers, and Nathaniel Butter, printer and publisher. Butter's offence was the issuing of a newspaper or pamphlet called The Reconciler ; Sparke was charged with causing to be printed another of Burton's works, entitled Bahel no Bethel, and Spencer's Maschil Unmasked ; while Augustine Mathewes was accused of printing for Sparke, William Prynne's Antithesis of the Church of England. Each party put in an answer, and of these, Michael Sparke's is the most interesting. He declared that the Star Chamber decree of 1586 was contrary to Magna Charta, and an infringement of the liberties of the subject, and he refused to say who, beside Mathewes, had printed book but it afterwards to Prynne's ; turned out be William Turner of Oxford, who confessed to

printing several other unlicensed books. A short term of imprisonment appears to have been the punishment inflicted on the parties in this instance. Both in 1630 and 1631 several other printers The Stuart Period 143 suffered imprisonment from the same cause, and Michael Sparke, who appears to have given out the work in most cases, was declared to be more refractory and offensive than ever. In 1632 appeared WiUiam Prynne's noted book. The Histrio-Mastix, The Players Scourge or Actor's Tragedie, a thick quarto of over one thousand closely printed pages, which bore on the title-page ' the imprint, printed by E. A. and W. J. for Michael Sparke.' This book, as its title implies, was an attack on stage-plays and acting. There was nothing in it to alarm the most sensitive Govern- ment, and even the hcenser, though he afterwards declared that the book was altered after it left his hands, could find nothing in it to condemn. But, as it happened, there was a passage concerning the presence of ladies at stage-plays, and as the Queen had shortly before attended a masque, the passage in question was held to allude to her, and accordingly Prynnc, Sparke, and the printers —one of whom was WilUam Jones—were thrown to trial into prison, and in 1633 were brought before the Star Chamber. The printers appear to have but was condemned escaped punishment ; Prynne to pay a fine of £1000, to be degraded from his ears cut off in the degree, to have both his pillory, rest of his in while and to spend the days prison ; Sparke was fined £500, and condemned to stand other in the pillory, but without degradation. During this year John Bastwick also issued two 144 English Printing

books directed against Episcopacy, both of which are now scarce. One was entitled Elenchus Re-

ligionis Papisticce, and the other Flagellum Ponti-

Jicis. They were printed abroad, and as a punishment their author was condemned to undergo a sentence Uttle less severe than that passed upon Prynne, who, in spite of his captivity, continued to write and publish a great number of pamphlets. Amongst these was one entitled Instructions to Church Wardens, printed in 1635. In the course of the evidence concerning this book, mention was made of a special initial letter C, which was said to represent a pope's head when turned one way, and an army of soldiers when turned the other, and to be unlike any other letter in use by London printers at that time. For printing this and other books, Thomas Purslowe, Gregory Dexter, and Wilham Taylor of Christchurch were struck from the list of master

printers.^ In 1637 appeared Prynne 's other notorious tract, Newes from Ipswich, a quarto of six leaves, for which he was fined by the Star Chamber a further sum of £5000, and condemned to lose the rest of his ears, and to be branded on the cheek with the

letters S. L. {i.e. scurrilous libeller), a sentence that was carried out on the 30th June of this year with great barbarity. The imprint to this tract ran ' Printed at Ipswich,' but its real place of printing

1 State vol. vol. Domestic Papers, 357, No. 172, 173 ; 371, No. 102. The Stuart Period 145 was London, and perhaps the name of Robert Raworth, which occurs in the indictment, may stand for Richard Raworth, the printer whom Sir John Lambe declared to be ' an arrant knave.' Or the printer may have been Wilham J ones, i who about this time was fined ;^iooo for printing seditious books. In 1634 the King wrote to Archbishop Laud to the effect that Doctor Patrick Young, keeper of the King's Hbrary, who had lately published the First Epistle of 5. Clement to the Corinthians in Greek and Latin, in conjunction with Bishop Lindsell of Peterborough now proposed to make ready for the or press one more Greek copies every year, if Greek types, matrices, and money were forth- coming. The King expressed his desire to encourage the work, and therefore commanded the Archbishop that the fine of £300, which had been inflicted upon Robert Barker and Martin Lucas in the preceding year, for what was described as a base and corrupt printing of the Bible in 1631

' ' (the omission of the word not from the seventh commandment, which has earned for the edition the name of the Wicked Bible), should be converted to the buying of Greek letters. The King further ordered tliat Barker and Lucas should print one work every year at their own cost of ink, paper, and workmanship, and as many copies as the Archbishop should think fit to authorise.

' Domestic Stale Papers, vol. 354, No. iSo. K 146 English Printing

The Archbishop thereupon wrote to the printers, who expressed their wilUngness to fall in with the scheme, and a press, furnished with a very good fount of Greek letter, was established at Black- friars. But the result was not what might have been expected. Partly owing to the political troubles that followed its foundation, and partly perhaps to delay on the part of the printers, the only important works that came from this press were Dr. Patrick Young's translation of the book of Job, from the Codex Alexandrinus, a folio printed in 1637, and the translation into Greek of the epistles of St. Paul, with a commentary by the Bishop of Peterborough, also a folio, which came from the same press in 1636. The Greek letter used in this office cannot be compared for beauty or delicacy of outline with that which was used in the Chrysostom of 1610. On the nth July 1637 was published another Star Chamber Decree concerning printers. Pro- fessor Arber, in his fourth volume (p. 528), stated that the appearance of a tract entitled The Holy Table, Name and Thing, must ever be associated with this decree, but it may be doubted whether it was not rather general causes, such as the growing power of the press, the long-continued attack upon the Prelacy by pamphleteers, which no fear of mutilation or imprisonment could stop, than any one particular tract, which led to that severe and crushing edict. The Stuart Period 147

This act, which was pubHshed on the nth July 1637, consisted of thirty-three clauses, and after

' reciting former ordinances, and the number of libel-

' lous, seditious, and mutinous books that were then daily published, decreed that all books were to be licensed : law books by the Lord Chief Justices and the Chief books with Lord Baron ; dealing history, the Secretaries of State books on by principal ; the Marshal on all other heraldry, by Earl ; and subjects, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, or the Chancellor or Vice- Chancellors of the two Universities. Two copies of every book submitted for publication were to be handed to the licensee, one of which he was to keep for future reference. Catalogues of all books imported into the country were to be sent to the Archbishop or Bishop of London, and no consignments of books were to be opened until the representatives of one of these dignitaries and of the Stationers' Company were present. The name of the printer, the author, and the publisher was to be placed in every book, and, under pretext of encouraging English printing, it was decreed further that no merchant or bookseller should import any English book printed abroad. No person was to erect a printing-press, or to let any premises for the purpose of carrying on i)nnling, without first giving notice to the Company, and no joiner or carpenter was to make a press without similar notice. 148 English Printing The number of master printers was limited by

this decree to twenty, and those chosen were : —

Felix Kingston. George Miller. Adam Islip. Richard Badger. Thomas Purfoote. Thomas Cotes. Miles Fletcher. Marmaduke Parsons. Thomas Harper. Bernard Alsop. John Beale. Richard Bishop. John Raworth. Edward Grififin. John Legate. Thomas Purslowe. Robert Young. Rich. Hodgkinsonne. John Haviland. John Dawson.

Each of these was to be bound in sureties of £300 to good behaviour. No printer was allowed to have more than two presses unless he were a Master or Warden of the Company, when he might have three. A Master or Warden might keep three apprentices but no more, a master printer on the livery might the rest one but have two, and only ; every printer was expected to give work to journeyman printers when required to do so, because it was stated that it was they who were mainly responsible for the publication of the libellous, seditious, and mutinous

books referred to. All reprints of books were to be licensed in the same way as first editions. The Com- pany were to have the right of search, and four type- founders, John Grismond, Thomas Wright, Arthur Nichols, and Alexander Fifield were considered sufficient for the whole trade. Finally, a copy of every book printed was to be sent to the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The penalties for breaking this decree The Stuart Period 149 included imprisonment, destruction of stock, and a whipping at the cart's tail. The twenty printers appointed by this decree were the subject of much investigation by Sir John Lamb, whose numerous notes and lists concerning them, as reprinted in the third volume of Professor Arber's Transcript from documents at the Record Office, are an invaluable acquisition to the history of the EngHsh press. Four of the chief offenders of the previous ten or eleven years, namely William Jones, Nicholas Okes, Augustine Mathewes, and Robert or Richard Raworth, were absolutely excluded, their places being taken by Marmaduke Parsons, Thomas Paine, and a new man, Thomas Purslowe, probably the son of Widow Purslowe. Conscious perhaps that their positions were in jeo- pardy, all four petitioned the Archbishop to be placed among the number, but in vain, and another man who was excluded at the same time was John Norton, a descendant of a long family of printers of that name, who had served his apprenticeship in the King's printing-house. Bernard Alsop alone was pardoned, and allowed to retain his place. The clause requiring all reprints to be licensed caused a good deal of murmuring, as did also that which forbade haberdashers, and others who were not legitimate booksellers, to sell books. The small number of type-founders allowed to the trade has also been a subject of much comment writers on this but if we believe by subject ; may 150 English Printing

the evidence of Arthur Nicholls, one of the four appointed, the number was quite sufficient. Nicholls was the founder of the Greek type used in the new office of Blackfriars, and his experience was certainly not likely to encourage other men to set up in the same trade. At the time when he was appointed one of the four founders under the decree, he could not make a living by his trade, and though he does not expressly state the fact, his evidence seems to imply that English printers at that time obtained most of their type from abroad, and it is beyond question that they had long since ceased to cast their own letter.

Drastic as this decree was, it practically remained a dead letter, for the reason that in the troublous times that followed within the next five years, the Government had their hands full in other directions, and were obliged to let the printers alone. Between this date and the year 1640, there was very little either of interest or value that came from the English press. The memory of rare Ben Jonson induced Henry Seile, of the Tiger's Head in Fleet Street, to publish in 1638 a quarto with the title of Jonsonus Virbius : or the Memory of Ben Jonson. Revived by the friends of the Muses, and among the contributors were Lord Falkland, Sir John Beau- mont the younger, Sir Thomas Hawkins, Henry King, Edmund Waller, Shackerley Marmion, and several others. The printer's initials are given as E. P., but these do not suit any of those who were The Stuart Period 151 authorised under the decree of the year before, and they may refer to EHzabeth Purslowe. That there was a considerable number of persons who, in spite of the Puritan tendencies of the age, loved a good play, is clearly seen from the number turned out during the years 1638, 1639, and 1640 by Thomas Nabbes, Henry Glapthorne, James Shirley, and Richard Brome. These were mostly quartos, very poorly printed, and chiefly from the presses of Richard Oulton, John Okes, and Thomas Cotes. Of collected works, there came out in small octavo form the Poems of Thomas Carcw from the press of John Dawson in 1640, and a collection of Shake- speare's Poems, also in small octavo, from the press of Thomas Cotes, in the same year. There were also published in 1640 from the press of Richard Bishop, who had succeeded to the business of William Stansby, Selden's Dc Jure Naturali et Gentium juxta disciplinam Ebneorum, in folio, and William Som- ner's Antiquities of Canterbury, one of the earliest and best of the contributions to county bibliography. Having now brought the record of the London press down to the time when it became engulphcd in the chaos of civil war, it is time to turn to the

University presses of Oxford and Cambridge. Since the year 1585, these were the only pro- as vincial presses allowed by law, and removed they were from the turmoil of conflicting parties, and the severity of trade competition, in whirh the London printers lived, their work showed more 152 English Printing uniformity of excellence, and on the whole sur- passed that of the London printers. Down to the year 1617 Oxford appears to have but one Barnes but in that had printer, Joseph ; year we find two at work, John Lichfield and William Wrench, the latter giving place the following year to James Short. In 1624 the two Oxford printers were John Lichfield and William Turner —the second, as we have seen, being notorious as the printer of unlicensed pamphlets for Michael the but in of this Sparke London publisher ; spite we find him holding his position until 1640, though in the meantime John Lichfield had been succeeded in business by his son, Leonard. In the introduction to his bibliography of the Oxford Press, Mr. Falconer Madan has given a list of the most important books printed at Oxford between 1585 and 1640, which we venture to reprint here with a few additions : —

1599. Richard de Bury's Philohihlon. 1608. Wycliff's Treatises. 16 12. Captain John Smith's Map of Virginia. 1621. Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. 1628. Field On the Church. 1633. Sandys' Ovid. 1634. The University Statutes. 1635. Chaucer's Troilus and Cressida in EngHsh and Latin. 1638. Chillingworth's Religion of Protestants. 1640. Bacon's Advancement and Proftcience of Learning. The Stuart Period 153

At Cambridge, where for many years the work of the University printers had been hampered by in the jealousy of the Company of Stationers London, the disputes between them were settled, for a while, on the lOth December 1623. The Company's last attempt to suppress Cantrell Legge, and prevent him from printing grammars and prayer-books, led to an appeal to the King, who made short work of the matter by ordering the two parties to come to an agreement. The terms of the settlement were : —

1. That all books should be sold at reasonable prices. 2. That the University should be allowed to print, conjointly with the London stationers, all books except the Bible, Book of Common Prayer, grammar, psalms, psalters, primers, etc., but they were only to employ one press upon privileged books. 3. That the University should print no almanacs then belonging to the Stationers, but they might print prognostications brought to them first.

4. That the Stationers should not hinder the sale of University books.

5. That the University printer should be at liberty to sell all grammars and psalms that he had already printed, and such as had been seized by the Company were to be restored. To the last clause a note was added to the effect that Bonham Norton was prepared to buy them at reasonable prices. 154 English Printing

A notable book from the Cambridge press was Phineas Fletcher's Purple Island, a quarto published in 1633. The title-page was printed in red and black, in well-cut Roman of four founts, with the lozenge-shaped device of the University in the centre, the whole being surrounded by a neat border of printers' ornaments. Each page of the book was enclosed within rules, which seems to have been the universal fashion of the trade at

this period, and at the end of each canto the device seen on the title-page was repeated. The Eclo- gues and Poems had each a separate title-page, and two well-executed copper-plate engravings occur in the volume. \^'e must not close this chapter without noting that in 1639 printing began in the New England across the sea. The records of Harvard College

' tell us that the Rev. Joseph Glover gave to the College a font of printing letters, and some gentlemen of Amsterdam gave towards furnishing of a printing-press with letters forty-nine pounds, and something more.' Glover himself died on the voyage out from England, but Stephen Day, the printer whom he was bringing with him, arrived in safety and was installed at Harvard College. The first production of his press was the Free- man's Oath, the second an Almanac, the third, published in 1640, The Psalms in Metre, Faithfully translated for the Use, Edification, and Comfort of the Saints in Puhlick and Private, especially in New The Stuart Period 155

England. This, the hrst book printed in North America, was an octavo of three hundred pages, of passably good workmanship, and is commonly known as the Bay Psalter—Cambridge, the home of Harvard College, lying near Massachusetts Bay. Stephen Day continued to print at Cambridge till 1648 or 1649, when he was succeeded in the charge of the press by Samuel Green, whose work will be mentioned at the end of our next chapter. CHAPTER VIII

FROM 1640 TO 1700

The art of printing in England had never at any time reached such a point of excellence as in Paris under the Estiennes, in Antwerp under Plantin, or in Venice under the Aldi. So great was the competition between the printers, and so heavy the restrictions placed upon them, that profit rather than good workmanship was their first con- sideration ; and when to these drawbacks was added the general disorganisation of trade conse- quent upon the outbreak of civil war, it is not surprising that it failed to maintain even that lower standard of excellence. Literature, other than that which chronicled the fortunes of the opposing factions, was almost totally neglected. Writers, even had they found printers willing to support them, would have found no readers. Such was the public anxiety, that it was scarcely possible to publish the Diurnals and Mercurys containing the latest news fast enough, and the press was un- equal to the strain, although the number of printers in London during this period was three times larger than that allowed by the decree of 1637. Professor Arber, in his Transcript, said that this 156 From 1640 to 1700 157 increase in the number of printers was due to the removal of the gag by the Long Parhament. The Long Parhament never had any intention of re- the but its hands full with moving gag ; having other and weightier matters it could iind no time to deal with the printers, and in the heat of the of fight, it was only too thankful to avail itself the pens of those who replied to the attacks of the this that Royahst press. The best evidence of is, as soon as opportunity offered, and in spite of the warning of the greatest literary man of that day, who was on their own side, the Long Parliament re-imposed the gag with as much severity as the hierarchy which it had deposed. For the publication of the news of the day, each party had its own organs. On the side of the Parliament the principal journals were The King- doms Weekly Intelligencer, printed and published by Nathaniel Butter, and Mcrcurius Britamiicus, Mercurius edited by Marchmont Nedham ; while Aulicus, edited by clever John Birkenhead, represented the Royalists, and was ably seconded by the Perfect Occurrences, printed by John Clowes and Robert Ibbitson. These sheets, which usually consisted of from four to eight quarto pages, contained news of the movements and actions of the opposing armies, the proceedings of the Parliament at Westminster, or of the King's Council at Oxford, or wherever he happened to be, and they were published some- 158 English Printing times twice and even three times a week. The pohtical pamphlets were bitter and scurrilous attacks by each party against the other, or the hare-brained prophecies of so-called astrologers, such as WiUiam Lilly, George Wharton, and John Gadbury. These two classes formed more than half the printed literature of those unhappy times, and the remainder of the output of the press was largely filled up with sermons, exhortations, and other religious writings. Careless worlananship, bad material and want of enterprise are the common features of the printer's trade in England between 1640 and 1650. Any old types or blocks were brought into use, and there is evidence of blocks and initial letters which had formed part of the stock of the printers of a century earher being brought to hght again at this time. But as, even in this darkest hour of the nation's fortunes, the soul of hterature was not crushed, and the voice of the poet could still make itself heard, so it is a great mistake to suppose that there were no good printers during the period covered by the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth. Take as an example the little duodecimo entitled Instructions for Forreme Travell, which came from the pen of James Howell, and was printed by T. B., no doubt Thomas Brudnell, for Hum- phrey Moseley. Some of the founts, especially the larger Roman, are very unevenly and badly cast, but on the whole the presswork was carefully From 1640 to 1700 159 done. The same may also be said of the foHo edition of Sir R. Baker's Chronicle, pubhshed in 1643. In this case we do not know who was the the initials lead us printer ; but ornaments and to suppose that it was the work of William Stansby's successor. The prose tracts, again, that Milton wrote between 1641-45 are far better printed than many of their kind, and prove that Matthew Sim- mons, who printed most of them, and who was one of the Commonwealth men, deserved the position he afterwards obtained. The first collected edition of Milton's poems was pubhshed by Humphrey Moseley in 1645. This was a small octavo, in two parts, with separate title-pages, and a portrait of the author by William Marshall, and came from the press of Ruth Raworth. In 1646 there appeared A Collection of all the Incomparable Peeces written by Sir John Suckling and published bv a frecnd to perpetuate his memory. This came from the press of Thomas Walklcy, who had issued the first edition of Aglaura and the later plays of the same writer. Walklcy also printed in small octavo, for Moseley, the Poems of Edmond Waller, but his work was none of the best.

A printer of considerable note at this time was William Dugard, who in 1644 was chosen head- master of Merchant Taylors' School, and set up a printing-press there. In January 1649 he i)nnted the first edition of the famous book Eikon Basilike, and followed it by a translation of Salmasius' i6o English Printing

Defensio Regia, for which the Council of State immediately ordered his arrest, seized his presses, and wrote to the Governors of the school, ordering

' them to elect a new schoolmaster, Mr. Dugard having shewn himself an enemy to the state by printing seditious and scandalous pamphlets, and therefore unfit to have charge of the education of youths' [Dom. S. P. Interregnum, pp. 578-583). Sir James Harrington, member of the Council of State, and author of Oceana, who seems to have known something about Dugard, interceded with the Council on his behalf, and at the same time persuaded him to give up the Royalist cause. So his presses were restored to him, and henceforward he appears to have devoted himself with equal zeal to his new masters.

He was the printer of ISIilton's answer to Sal- masius, published by the Council's command, of a book entitled Mare Clausum, also published by authority, of the Catechesis Ecclesiarum, a book which the Council found to contain dangerous opinions and ordered to be burnt, and of a tract written by Milton's nephew, John Phillips, entitled Responsio ad apologiam. His initials are also met with in many other books of that time. His press was furnished with a good assortment of type, and his press-work was much above the average of that period. Among other books that came from the London press during this troubled time, we may single out From 1640 to 1700 161

three which have found a lasting place in English literature. The first is Robert Herrick's Hes- in the the perides, printed years 1647-48 ; second a volume of verse, by Richard Lovelace, entitled Lucasta, Epodes, Odes, Sonnets, Songs, &c., printed in Thomas the last Izaak Walton's 1649 by Harper ; Complete Angler, which came from the press of John Maxey in 1653. All were small octavos, indifferently printed with poor type, and no pre- tensions to artistic workmanship. In 1649, the year of Charles I's execution, the Council of State, in consequence of the number

' ' of scandalous and seditious pamphlets which were constantly appearing, in spite of all decrees and acts to the contrary, ordered certain printers to enter into recognizances in two sureties of £300, and their own bond for a similar amount, not to print any such books, or allow their presses to be used for that purpose. Accordingly, in the Calen- dar of State Papers for the year 1649-50 (pp. 522, 523), we find a list of no less than sixty printers in London and the two Universities who entered into such sureties. In almost every case the address is given in full, in itself a gain, at a time when lilt; printer's name rarely appeared in the imprint of a book. This list has been printed in Biblio- graphica (v(j1. ii. pp. 225-26). While it docs not include all the printers having presses at that time, yet, if we remember that under the Star Chamber decree of 1637 the number 1 62 English Printing in London was strictly limited to twenty, it shows how rapid the growth of the trade was in those twelve years. Of the original twenty, only three seem to have survived the troubles and dangers of the Civil Wars—Bernard Alsop, Richard Bishop, and Thomas Harper, though the places of three more were filled by their survivors—Elizabeth Purslowe standing in the place of her husband, Purslowe Gertrude Thomas ; Dawson succeeding her and Flesher husband, John Dawson ; James or Fletcher in the room of his father. Miles Flesher. John Grismond and James Moxon were type- founders, Henry Hills and John Field were appointed printers to the State under Cromwell, and Thomas Newcomb, who had succeeded to the business of John Raworth in 1649, was also largely employed, and shared with the other two the privilege of Bible printing. Roger Norton was the son of Bonham Norton. Of Roycroft and Simmons we shall hear a good deal later on, as indeed we shall of many others in this list. The only names that hardly seem to warrant insertion as printers are those of John and Richard Royston. Although they were for many years stationers to King Charles II, we cannot hear of any printing- presses in their possession. With the quieter time of the Commonwealth, a distinct improvement took place in workmanship, and several notable works were produced, though the annual output of books was much below the From 1640 to 1700 163 average of the seven years preceding. Foremost among the pubhcations of that time must be placed Sir WilUam Dugdale's Monasticum Anglicanum, the first voUime of which appeared in 1655. This first volume, a large and handsome folio, came from the press of Richard Hodgkinson, and was printed in pica roman in double columns, with a great deal of italic and black letter inter- mixed. The types were as good as any to be found in England at that time, and the press-work was carefully done. The engravings were chiefly the work of Hollar, aided by Edward Mascall and Daniel King, and are excellently reproduced. The whole work occupied eighteen years in publication, the second volume being printed by Alice Warren, the widow of Thomas Warren, in 1661, and the third and last Newcombe in but by Thomas 1673 ; these later volumes differed very little in appearance from the first, the same method of setting and the same mixture of founts being adhered to. In 1656 appeared, from the press of Thomas Warren, Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire, a folio of 826 pages. On the title-page is seen the device of old John Wolfe, the City printer. The dedication was in but the printed great primer ; look of th(' text was marred by a bad fount of black letter which did not print well. Like the Monasticon, this work was illustrated with maps and portraits by Hollar and Vaughan. Another considerable undertaking was the His- 164 English Printing torical Collections of John Rushworth, in eight folio volumes, of which the first was printed by Thomas Newcombe in 1659, the others between 1680 and 1701. But the great typographical achievement of the century was the Polyglott Bible, edited by Brian \\'alton. It was the fourth great Bible of the kind which had been published. The earliest was the Complutcnsian, printed at Alcala in 1517, with Hebrew, Latin, Greek, and Chaldean texts. Next came the Antwerp Polyglott, printed at the Plantin Press in 1572, which, in addition to the texts above mentioned, gave the Syriac version. This was followed in 1645 by the Paris Polyglott, which added Arabic and Samaritan, was in ten folio volumes, and took seventeen years to complete. The London Polyglott of 1657, which exceeded all these in the number of texts, was mainly due to the enterprise and industry of Brian Walton, Bishop of Chester. This famous scholar and divine was born at Cleveland, in Yorkshire, in 1600. He was educated at Cambridge, and after serving as curate in All Hallows, in Bread Street, became rector of St. Martin's Orgar and of St. Giles in the Fields. He was sequestered from his living at St. Martin's during the troubles of the Revolu- tion, and fled to Oxford, and it was while there that he is said to have formed the idea of the Poly- glott Bible. The first announcement of the great under- From 1640 to 1700 165 taking was made in 1652, when a type specimen sheet, beheved to be still in existence, was printed by James Flesher or Fletcher of Little Britain, and issued with the prospectus, which was printed by Roger Norton of Blackfriars for Timothy Garth- waite. \\'alton's Polyglott was the second book printed by subscription in England, Minsheu's Dictionary in Eleven Languages having been pub- Ushed in this manner in 1617. The terms were £10 per copy, or £50 for six copies. The estimated cost of the first volume was £1500, and of succeeding volumes £1200, and such was the spirit with which the work was taken up that £9000 was subscribed before the first volume was put to press. To the texts which had appeared in previous Polyglotts, Persian and Ethiopic were added, so that in all nine languages were included in the

work—that is, Hebrew, Latin, Greek, Chaldean, Syriac, Arabic, Samaritan, Persian, and Ethiopic —besides much additional matter in the form of

tables, lexicons, and grammars. No single book was printed in all of these, only the Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Arabic running throughout the work, while the Hebrew appears in the Old Testament, the Psalms in Ethiopic, and the New Testament has, in addition to the four principal texts, the Ethiopic and Persian. The whole work occupied six fcjlio volumes, measuring i6xio|, and was printed by Thomas Roycroft from types supplied by the four recog- 1 66 English Printing nisL'd typefounders. At the commencement of the first volume is a portrait of Walton by Bombert, followed by an elaborately engraved title-page, the work of ^^'encelaus Hollar, an architectural design adorned with scenes from Scripture history. The second title-page was printed in red ink, and the text was so arranged that each double page, when open, showed all the versions of the same passage. The types used in this work have been described in detail by Rowe Mores in his Dissertations upon English Founders, and by Talbot Baines Reed in his work upon the Old English Letter Foundries (Chap, vii. pp. 164, ct seqq.). Speaking of the English founts, the last-named writer points out that the double pica, roman and italic, seen in the Dedi- cation, is the same fount that was cut by the sixteenth-century printer, John Day, and used by him to print the Life of Alfred the Great. Mr. Reed adds that, in spite of a certain want of uniformity in the bodies, the Ethiopic and Samaritan were especially good, and the Syriac and Arabic boldly cut.

All six volumes were printed within four years, the first appearing in September 1654, the second in 1655, the third in 1656, and the last three in 1657. Looking at the labour involved by such an undertaking, it has been rightly described by Mr. T. B. Reed as a lasting glory to the typography of the seventeenth century. OHver Cromwell, under whose government this From 1640 to 1700 167 noble work was accomplished, had assisted, as far as lay in his power, by permitting the importation of the free of and in the first editions paper duty ; this assistance was gracefully acknowledged by the editor, but on the Restoration those passages were altered or omitted to make room for compliments to Charles II. Amongst those who ably assisted Walton in his labours was Dr. Edmund Castell, who prepared a Heptaglott Lexicon for the better study of the various languages used in the Polyglott. This work received the support of all the learned men of the time, but the undertaking was the ruin of its author, and a great part of the impression perished in the destruction of Roycroft's premises in the Great Fire of 1666. The Restoration brought with it little change in the conditions under which printing was carried on in England, or in the lot of the printers themselves. There is in the Public Record Office a petition drawn up in 1660 or 1661 by eleven of the leading London printers, for the incorporation of the printers into a body distinct from the Com- pany of Stationers, and appended to it arc the ' ' reasons for the proposed change, which occupy four or five closely-written folio sheets. The sig-

natories were : — Richard Hougkinson, John Guismond, Robert Ibbotson, 1 68 English Printing Thomas Mabb,

Da[niel ?] Maxwell, Thomas Roycroft, William Godbid, Jo[hn] Streator, James Cottrel, John Hayes, and

John Brudenell ; and it was undoubtedly these men, some of them ' the biggest in the trade, who formed the Com- panie of Printers,' for whom in 1663 a pamphlet was issued, entitled A Brief Discourse concerning Printers a7id Printing. For the printed pamphlet embodies the same views put forward in the petition, only backed up with fresh evidence and terse arguments. The claim of the printers amounted to this, that the Company of Stationers had become mainly a Company of Booksellers, that in order to cheapen printing they had admitted a great many more printers than were necessary, and from

' this cause arose the great quantity of scandalous

' and seditious books that were constantly being published. They go on to say that the condition

' of the great body of printers was deplorable, they can hardly subsist in credit to maintain their fami- nes. . . . When an ancient printer died, and his copies were exposed to sale, few or none of the young ones were of ability to deal for them, nor indeed for any other, so that the Booksellers have engross'd almost all.' The petitioners show also From 1640 to 1700 169 that the Company of Stationers was grown so large that none could be jNIaster or Warden until he was well advanced in life, and therefore unable to keep a vigilant eye on the trade, while a printer did not become Master once in ten or twenty years. They argue that the best expedient for checking these disorders and ensuring lawful printing, would be to incorporate the printers into a distinct body, and they advocate the registration of presses, the right of search, and the enforcement of sureties. Finally, they claim that this plan would also do much to improve printing as an art, as under the existing conditions there was no encouragement to the printers to produce good work. This petition, though it does not seem to have received any official reply, was noticed by Sir Roger L'Estrange in the Proposals which he laid before the House of Parliament, and which undoubtedly formed the basis of the Act of 1662. Sir Roger L'Estrange had been an active adherent of the Royal cause, and soon after the Restoration, on the 22nd February 1661-62, he was granted a warrant to search for and seize unlicensed presses and seditious books {State Papers, Charles II,

Vol. li. No. 6). A list is still extant of books which he had seized at the oflice of John Hayes, one of the signatories of the above petition. So that alth(mgh the office of Surveyor of the Press was not officially created until 1663, it is clear from the issue of the warrant, and also from the fact 170 English Printing of L 'Estrange having been directed to draw up proposals for the regulation of the Press, that he was acting in that capacity more than a twelvemonth earlier. His proposals were, in 1663, printed in pamphlet form with the title. Considerations and Proposals in order to the Regulation of the Press, and were dedicated to the King, and also to the House of Lords and contain that is ; they much interesting. He states that hundreds of thousands of seditious papers had been allowed to go abroad since the King's return, and that there had been printed ten or twelve impressions of Farewell Sermons, to the number of thirty thousand, since the Act of Uniformity, adding that the very persons the of who had care the Press {i.e. the Company of Stationers) had connived at its abuse. In support of this statement he pointed out that Pres- byterian pamphlets were rarely suppressed, that rich offenders were passed over, and scarcely any of those who were caught were ever brought to justice. He gives the number of printers then at work in London as sixty, the number of apprentices about a hundred and sixty, besides a large number of and he at once journeymen ; proposed to reduce the number of printers to twenty, with a corresponding reduction of apprentices and journeymen. As this would throw a large number of men out of work, he further proposed a scheme for the relief of necessitous and supernumerary

printers. He calculated that the twelve impres- From 1640 to 1700 171

sions of the Farewell Sermons, allowing a thousand copies to each impression, had yielded a profit,

' beside the charge of paper and printing,' of £3300, and he advised that this sum should be levied as a fine upon those booksellers who had sold the book, and be placed to a fund for the benefit of the suppressed printers, the balance of the sum required to be levied on other seditious publica-

tions !

In this pamphlet L 'Estrange gave the titles of most of the pamphlets to which he objected, with brief extracts from them, and the names of the

printers and publishers, amongst whom were Thomas Brewster, Giles Calvert, Simon Dover, and one other, whose name is not mentioned, but who is referred to as holding a highly profitable office. The reference may be to Thomas New- comb.

At pages 26 and 27 L'Estrange notices the petition of certain of the printers to be incorporated

' as a separate body. He says that it were a hard matter to pick f)Ut twenty master printers, who

are both free of the trade, of ability to manage it,

and of integrity to be entrusted with it, most of the honcstcr sort being impoverished by the late times, and the great business of the press being cngross'd by Oliver's creatures.' He admits that the Company of Stationers and Booksellers are largely responsible for the great increase of presses, being anxious to have their books printed as cheaply 172 English Printing

as possible, but thinks that there would be as much abuse of power among incorporated printers as among the Company of Stationers. The Act of 1662, which was mainly based on L 'Estrange 's report, was in a large measure a re- enactment of the Star Chamber decree of 1636. The number of printers in London was limited to twenty, the type-founders to four, and the other clauses of the earlier decree were reinforced, but with one notable concession. Hitherto printing outside London had been restricted to the two

Universities, but in the new Act the city of York was expressly mentioned as a place where printing might be carried on. This new Act was enforced for a time with even greater severity than the old one, and under it a printer suffered the death penalty for the liberty of the press. The story of the trial and condemnation of John Twyn is told in vol. 6 of Cobbett's State Trials, and was also published in pamphlet form with the title, An exact narrative of the Tryal and condemnation of fohn Twyn, for Printing and Dispersing of a Treasonable Book, With the Tryals of Thomas

Brewster, bookseller, Simon Dover, printer, Nathan

Brooks, bookseller . . . in the Old Bayly, London, the 20th and 22nd February i66|. John Twyn was a small printer in Cloth Fair, and his crime was that of printing a pamphlet entitled A Treatise of the Execution of fustice, in From 1640 to 1700 173 which, as it was alleged, there were several passages aimed at the King's life and the overthrow of the Government. It was further stated by the prosecution that the pamphlet was part of a plot for a general rebellion that was to have taken effect on the 12th October 1662. The chief witnesses against Twyn were Joseph Walker, his apprentice, Sir Roger L'Estrange, and Thomas Mabb, a printer. Their evidence went to show that had two that he Tw^n presses ; composed part of the book, printed some of the sheets, and corrected the proofs, the work being done secretly at night-time. On entering the premises it was found that the forme of type had been broken up, only one corner of it remaining standing, and that the printed sheets had been hurriedly thrown down some stairs. In defence Twyn declared that he had received the copy from Widow Calvert's maid, and had received 40s. on account, with more to follow on completion, and \\c stinitly asserted that he did not know the nature of the work. The jury, amongst whom were Richard Royston and Simon Waterson, btjokscllers, and James Fletcher and Thomas Roycroft, printers, returned a verdict of Guilty, and Twyn was condemned to death and executed at Tyburn. The charge against Simon Dover was of printing the pamphlet entitled The Speeches of some of the late King's fuslices, which wc have already seen that Roger L'Estrange had seized in John Hayes' 174 English Printing premises, while Thomas Brewster was accused of causing this and another pamphlet, entitled The Phcenix of the Solemn League and Covenant, to be printed. In defence, Thomas Brewster declared that booksellers did not read the books sold they ; so long as they could earn a penny they were satisfied—an argument that had been used more than a century before by old Robert Copland as an excuse for indifferent printing. Both Dover and Brewster were condemned to pay a fine of lOO marks, to stand in the pillory, and to remain prisoners during the King's pleasure. Sir Roger L'Estrange, as a reward for his services, was appointed Surveyor of the Press, with permission to pubhsh a news-sheet of his own, and liberty to harass the printers as much as possible. But far greater calamities than the malice of Sir Roger L'Estrange could devise fell upon the printing trade by the outbreak of the Plague in 1665, and the subsequent Fire of London. In a letter written by L'Estrange to Lord Arlington, and dated i6th October 1665, he stated that eighty of the printers had died of the Plague [Cat. of S. P. 1665-66, p. 20), in which total he evidently included workmen as well as masters. The loss occasioned by the stoppage of trade and flight of the citizens must have been enormous, and yet it was slight in comparison to that inflicted upon the trade by the burning of London. Curiously enough, there are very few records showing the effect of this second From 1640 to 1700 175 disaster upon the printing trade. We find a petition by Christopher Barker, the King's printer, to be allowed to import paper free of charge in consequence of his loss by the Fire, and the same indulgence is granted to the Stationers' Company as a and the Universities but there are no body ; notes of individual losses, and only one or two references to MSS. that were destroyed in it. On the 24th of July 1668 a return was made of all the printing-houses in London, which shows at a glance who had survived and who had suffered by that terrible calamity (see Appendix I). Comparing this Hst with that of 1649, we find that only eight London printers were actually ruined by the Fire, among them being John Hayes, John Brudenell, and also Alice Warren. Another interesting paper, written in the same year, and preserved in the same volume of State Papers,! shows the position of every man in the trade. This is headed—

A Survey of the Printing Presses with the names and numbers of Apprentices, Officers, and Worke- men belongi7ig to every particular press. Taken 29 fuly 1668. (See Appendix IL) The largest employer was James Fletcher, who kept five presses, and employed thirteen workmen and two apprentices. Next to him came Thomas

Newcomb, with three presses and a proof press, twelve workmen and ^ne appnmtice ; John May-

* /?«?/«. .S'. /'., CAiis. //, vol, 243, p. 181. 176 English Printing cocke, with three presses, ten workmen and three and then apprentices ; Roycroft, with four presses, ten workmen and two while at apprentices ; the other end of the scale was Thomas Leach, with one press, not his own, and one workman. Whether L 'Estrange carried out his threat of prosecuting the three men who had set up since the Act, we do not know, but one of their number, John Darby, continued to work for many years after this, and was the printer of Andrew Marvell's Rehearsal Transposed, and a good deal else that galled the Government. In fact, the Act of 1662 was openly ignored, and new men set up presses every year. But of all this work it is almost impossible to trace what was done by individual printers. The bulk of the publications of the time bore the bookseller's name only, and it is very rarely that the printer is revealed. Newcomb had the printing of the Gazette, and also printed most of Dryden's works that were while published by Herringman ; Roycroft, as we have seen, printed the Polyglot Bible, and he was also the printer of the splendid series of classics published at this time by John Ogilby. Another printer of this period who deserves notice was E. Horton, who in 1679 printed for a syndicate of booksellers in London folio editions of Cicero and Herodotus, for which the type was cast by James Grover, and which may rank \\ith the best work of that day. Milton's From 1640 to 1700 177

the of Peter Parker Paradise Lost came from press ; but the printer of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is unknowTi to us. There were only three foundries of note in London during this time. The first of the three was that of Joseph Moxon, who, in 1659, added type-founding to his other callings of mathematician and hydrographcr. Having spent some years in Hol- land, he was very much enamoured of the Dutch types, and in 1676 he wrote a book entitled Regulce Trium Ordiniim Literaruni Typographicarum, in which he endeavoured to prove that each letter should be cast in exact mathematical proportion, and illustrated his theory by several letters cast in that manner. Similiar theories had been pro- pounded in earlier days by Albert Durer and the French printer, Geoffrey Tory, but no improvement in printing ever resulted from them. Moxon 's foundry was fitted with a large assortment of letter, but his work, judging from the examples left to us, was certainly not up to the theory which he put forward, and he is best remembered for his useful work on printing, which formed the second part of his Mechanick Exercises, and was published in 1683. In this he showed an intimate knowledge of every branch of printing and type-founding, and his book is still a standard work on both these subjects. Moxon retired from business some years before his death, and was succeeded in 1683 by Joseph and Robert Andrews, M 178 English Printing who, in addition to Moxon's founts, had a large assortment of others. Their foundry was particularly rich in Roman and italic, and the learned founts, and they also had matrices of Anglo-Saxon and Irish. But their work was not by any means good. The third of these letter foundries was that of

James and Thomas Grover in Angel Alley, Alders- gate Street, who after Moxon's retirement shared with Andrews the whole of the English trade. The most notable founts in their possession were, a pica and longprimer Roman, from the Royal Press at Blackfriars, Day's double pica Roman and italic, and two good founts of black letter, reputed to have formed part of the stock of Wynkyn de Worde. They also had the EngHsh Samaritan matrices from which the type for Walton's Poly- gloti in 1657 had been cast. Among the types belonging to this foundry was one which, in the inventory, was returned as New Coptic, but which was in reality a Greek uncial fount, cut for the specimen of the Codex Alex- andrinus which Patrick Young proposed to print, but did not live to accomplish. The specimen was printed in 1643, and consisted of the first chapter of Genesis. It is supposed that this fount remained unknown, under the title of New Coptic, until 1758, when the Grover foundry passed into the hands of John James. On the death of Thomas Grover, the foundry remained in possession of his From 1640 to 1700 179

daughters, who endeavoured to sell it, but Nnthout success, and it remained locked up for many years in the premises of Richard Nutt, a printer, until

1758 (Reed, Old English Letter Foundries, p. 205). After a lapse of twenty years, the Act of 1662 was renewed by the first parliament of James II (1685) for a period of seven years, and at the expiration of that time, i.e. in 1692, it was renewed for another twelvemonth, after which we hear no more of it. There is no evidence that it had been very enforced its short revival in fact strictly during ; it is clear, from the number of presses found in various parts of the country during the last five and twenty years of the century, that it had remained practically a dead letter from the time of the Great Fire.

Returning now to the provinces, wc find that the troubles of the Civil War had suspended for a time all progress in printing at Oxford. But on the Restoration it made even greater advances than it had done at an earlier period of its history. Archbishftp Laud had a worthy successor in Dr. John Fell, who in 1667 enriched the University by a gift of a complete type-foundry, consisting of punches, matrices, and founts of Roman, italic,

' Orientals, Saxons,' and black letter, besides moulds and other necessary appliances for the production of type. Dr. Fell also introduced a skilled letter- founder from Holland. For a couple of years the foundry and printing office were carried on in i8o English Printing private premises hired by Fell, but upon the completion of the Sheldonian Theatre the printing office was removed to the basement of that building, the first book bearing the Theatre imprint being An Ode in praise of the Theatre and its Founder, printed in 1669. Another scholarly benefactor, Francis Junius, presented the University in 1677 with a splendid collection of type, consisting of Runic, Gothic, 'Saxon,' 'Islandic,' Danish, and 'Swedish,' as well as founts of Roman, italic, and other sorts. Mr. Horace Hart, the Controller of the Clarendon Press, gave examples of several of the founts, in his Notes on a Century of Typography at the Uni- versity Press, Oxford, printed for private circulation in 1900. Very little use seems to have been made of these gifts before the commencement of the succeeding century. The first Bible printed at Oxford was that of 1674, and no important editions of the classics issued from the University press of this period. In Cambridge, Roger Daniel, who, down to 1640, was in partnership with Thomas Buck, continued to be the chief printer of that University until June I, 1650, when his patent was cancelled for neglect, but he continued to print books in London down to 1666. On October 12, 1655, John Field was appointed printer to the University. He printed many From 1640 to 1700 181 editions of the Bible, and built a new printing office in Silver Street, which continued to be the University Printing Office until 1827. In 1668 he was succeeded by John Hayes, who issued some notable books, such as Robertson's Thesaurus, 1676, 4to, and Barnes' History of Edward III, 1688. 4to. The history of other provincial presses of this period is very meagre. Mr. Allnutt, to whose valuable papers in the second volume of Biblio- graphica I am indebted for the following notes, expresses the belief that in several cases local knowledge would show that presses were at work some years earlier than the dates he has given. At the time of the Civil War, Robert Barker, the King's printer, had in 1639 been commanded to attend His Majesty in his march against the Scots. As Robert Barker was then in prison, it is clear that he could not have obeyed the order, but his son-in-law, John Legate, appears to have acted as his deputy on this occasion, and printed several proclamations, news-sheets, &c., at New- castle-on-Tync, all of which boar Robert's imprint as King's printer. At York, where some thirty- nine different sheets, &c., have been traced from his press, it was R(jbert's son, Christ* »ph('r Barker the third, who took presses and workmen to that city, and probably also to Nottingham, Shrews- bury, and Bristol, in 1642 and 1643. In 1O42 a second press was at work in York, that of Stephen 1 82 English Printing

Bulkley who had lied from London. When York fell into the hands of the Parliament, Bulkley 's press was silent for a while, and his place was taken by Thomas Broad, who printed there from 1644 to 1660, and was succeeded by his widow, Alice, who disappears in 1667. After the Restora- tion, Bulkley again set up his press at York, where he continued down to 1680. In 1645 Thomas Fuller issued, in small duodecimo, a collection of pious thoughts, which he aptly termed Good Thoughts in Bad Tunes, and in the Dedication to it expressly stated that it was 'the first fruits of the Exeter presse.' There

was no printer's name in the volume, and no other work printed in Exeter at that time is known. In 1688, however, another press was started there, and printed several political broadsides relative to the Prince of Orange. And again, in 1698, a small pamphlet was printed in this city. Stephen Bulkley, the York printer, appears to have gone from that city to Newcastle in 1646, and continued printing there until 1652. He then removed to Gateshead, where he remained until after the Restoration, subsequently returning to Newcastle, and so back to York. No more is heard of printing in Newcastle until the opening of the eighteenth century. in the A press was established in Bristol year in the 1695, and in Plymouth and Shrewsbury year 1696. From 1640 to 1700 183

In America the progress of printing was very slow throughout the seventeenth century. Until 1660, Samuel Green, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, remained the only printer in the colony. But in that year the Corporation for the propagation of the Gospel in New England among the Indians sent over from London another press, a large supply of good letter, and a printer named Marmaduke Johnson, for the purpose of printing an edition of the Bible in the Indian tongue. This press was set up in the same building as that in which Green was already at work, and the two printers seem to have worked together at the production of the Bible, which appeared in quarto form in 1663, the New Testamf;nt having been published two years earlier. Johnson died in the year 1675, but Samuel Green continued to print until 1702. After his death the press at Cambridge was silent for some years. In 1675 a press was established at Boston by John Foster, a graduate of Harvard College, under a licence from the College. Besides the official work of the colony and theological literature, he printed several pamphlets on the war between the English and the Indians. He died in 1681, when he was succeeded by Samuel Green, junior, who continued printing there until 1690. In the following year three printers' names are found in the imprints of books: R. Pierce, Benjamin Harris, and John All( n. Benjamin Harris is afterwards called 184 English Printing

' Printer to his Excellency, the Governor and Council/ but in 1693 Harris removed from 'over

' against the Old Meeting House,' to the Bible over against the Blew Anchor,' and another printer, Bartholomew Green, seems to have shared with him the official work. Pennsylvania was the next of the colonies to establish a its first press ; printer, William Brad- ford, setting up there in 1685, in which year he printed Kaleiidarium Pennsilvaniense, or, America's Messinger, Being an Almanack for the Year of Grace 1686.

In 1688 Bradford issued proposals for printing a large Bible (Hildeburn, Issues of the Pennsyl- vania i. Press, vol. p. 9), but they came to nothing. In 1692 he printed several pamphlets for George Keith, the leader of the schism among the Quakers, and for this he was imprisoned. On his release he removed to New York. A press was also set up in Virginia in 1682, but was suppressed, and no printing allowed there until 1729. The name of the printer is not known, but is believed to have been William Nuthcad, who set up a press in Maryland in 1689 ^^ith a similar result. The first printer in New York was William Bradford, who began work there on the loth April 1693. Among his most famous publications before the close of the seventeenth century was Keith's Truth Advanced, a quarto of 224 pages, printed on paper manufactured at his own mill and issued From 1640 to 1700 185 in in the same he also The 1694 ; year printed Laws and Acts of the General Assembly.

APPENDIX No. I

List of severall printing houses taken y* 24th July 1668 :—

The Kings printing office in English. The Kings printing office in Hebrew, Greek, and Latine. Roger Norton.

The Kings printer in y'= Oriental tongues. Thomas Roycroft. Collonell John Streater by an especiall provisoe in y® Act. [The same who in 1653 had been committed to the Gatehouse for printmg seditious pamphlets.]

The other Masters are :-

Mr. Evan Tyler. Mr. Thomas Johnson.

„ Robert White. ,, Nath Crouch.

,, James Flesher. „ Thomas I'urslowe.

,, Richard Hodgkinson. ,, Peter Lillicrapp.

,, Thomas Ratliffc. ,, Thomas Leach.

„ John Maycocke. ,, Henry Lloyd. „ John Field. „ Thomas Milbourne. Cottrell. ,, Thomas Ncwcomb. „ James

,, William (iodbid. ,, Andrew Coc. „ John Redman. „ Henry Bridges.

Widdowes of printers : —

Mrs. Sarah Gryffyth. Mrs. Anne Maxwell. Coles.

Simmons. Custome house printer. 1 86 English Printing

Printers were Masters at w''' y*^ y^ passeing of y*' Act are fire : — disabled by y''

Mr. John Brudenall. Mr. Leybourne. Hayes. „ Wood. Child. „ Vaughan. I) Warren. „ Ouseley.

Printers set up since y^ Act and contrary to it : — Mr. William Rawlins. Mr. John Darby.

,, John Winter. „ Edward Oakes.

{Dom. S. F. Chas. II, vol. 243, No. 126.)

APPENDIX No. II

NUMBER OF PRESSES AND WORKMEN EMPLOYED IN THE PRINTING HOUSES OF LONDON IN 1668

At the King's House 6 Presses, 8 Compositors, 10 Pressmen. At Mr. Tyler's 3 Presses and a Proof Press, 1 Apprentice, 6 Workmen. At Mr. White's 3 Presses, 3 Apprentices, 7 Workmen, At Mr. Flesher's 5 Presses, 2 Apprentices, 13 Workmen. At Mr. Norton's 3 Presses, I Apprentice,

7 Workmen. From 1640 to 1700 187

At Mr. Rycroft's [Roy- 4 Presses, 2 croft's] Apprentices, 10 Workmen [three of whom were not free of the Company]. At Mr. Ratcliffe's 2 Presses, 2 Apprentices, 7 Workmen. At Mr. Maycock'b 3 Presses, 3 Apprentices, 10 Workmen.

At Mr. Newcombe's 3 Presses and a Proof Press, 1 Apprentice,

7 Compositors, 5 Pressmen. At Mr. Godbidd's 3 Presses, 2 Apprentices, 5 Workmen. At Mr. Streater's 5 Presses, 6 Compositors, 2 Pressmen. At Mr. Milbourne's 2 Presses, o Apprentices, 2 Workmen. At Mr. Cattcrell's [Cot- 2 Presses,

trell ?] Apprentices, 2 Compositors,

t I'ressman. At Mrs. Symond's 2 Presses, 1 Apprentice, 5 Workmen.

At Mrs. Cotes . 3 Presses, 2 Apprentices, 9 I'rcssincn. i88 English Printing

At Mrs. Griffin's CHAPTER IX

FROM 1700 TO 1750

Having to some extent shaken itself free from the cramping influences of monopolies and State in- terference, the output of the English printing press at the commencement of the eighteenth century had almost doubled that of thirty or forty years before, and presses were now at work in various parts of the kingdom. But the long period of thraldom had resulted in completely destroying all originality amongst the printers, and almost in the destruction of the art of letter-founding. With the exception of the University of Oxford, which, owing to the generous bequests of Bishop Fell and others, was well supplied with good founts, the printers of this country were compelled to obtain their type from Holland, and all the best and most important books published in Queen Anne's days were printed with Dutch letter, as it was called. Jacob Tonson is said to have spent some; £300 in obtaining this foreign letter, and one important English foundry, that of Thomas James, was almost wholly stocked with these foreign founts. Yet this Dutch letter was by no means easy to get, and went to the experience of James, who in 1710 189 iQO English Printing

Holland for the purpose, bore out what Moxon had said in his Mechanick Exercises, that the art of letter-cutting was jealously guarded by those who practised it. Some of the Dutch type-founders refused to sell him types on any terms, and it was only by getting hold of a man who was more fond of his liquor than his trade, that James was able to get matrices, for even this individual refused to sell his punches. Nor was the vendor in any hurry to part with the matrices, and it cost James much money, time, and patience before he was able to secure them. Writing from Rotterdam on the 27th July in that year, he says :

' The beauty of letters, like that of faces, is as people opine, ... all the Romans excel what we have in England, in my opinion, and I hope, being well wrought, I mean cast, will gain the approbation of very handsome letters. The Italic I do not look upon to be unhandsome, though the Dutch are never very extraordinary in them.' James returned to England with 3500 matrices of various founts of Roman and italics, as well as sets of Greek and some black letter. He set up his foundry in a part of the buildings belonging to the Priory of St. Bartholomew, in Smithfield, and it continued to be the most important in London until the days of Caslon. The proportion of Dutch to English types in the printing offices at that time is well illustrated by the valuable Hst of the types possessed by John Baskett, the Royal printer at Oxford, in the year 1718. The Royal printing- house was perhaps the largest and most lucrative From 1700 to 1750 191 office in the kingdom. For upwards of a century it had been owned by the descendants of Christopher Barker, from whom it had passed to Messrs. New- combe, Hill, Mearne, and others. From these the patent was bought in 1709 by John Baskett, of whose antecedents nothing is known. In addition to the business at Blackfriars, Baskett, in conjunction with John Williams and Samuel Ashurst, obtained a lease from the Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of Oxford University of their privilege of printing for twenty-one years. From an indenture in the of possession of Mr. J. H. Round, the substance which he communicated to the Athenceum of 5th Sep- tember 1885, it appears that on the 24th December 1718 Baskett gave a bond to James Brooks, stationer of London, for a loan of £4000, and for security mortgaged his stock, which was set out in a schedule as follows :

' An Account of the Letter, Presses, and ntlier .Stock and Implements of and in the Trintinj^ house at Oxford, belonging' to John Baskett, citizen and stationer of London.'

1. A large ffbunt of Perle letter cast by NU Andrews. 2. A large fTount of Nonp' Letter new cast by ditto. of the wliirli 3. Another ffount Nonp' Letter, old, standing and sett up in a Com'on prayer in 24""' conii)le;U. cast M' Andrews. 4. A large ffount of Min" Letter new by of Min" new cast in Holland. 5. Another large ffount Letter, 6. The whole Testament standing in Brev' an

8. A veiy large fibunt of Lo: Primer Letter, new cast by M' Andrew.

9. A large ffount of pica Letter very good, cast by ditto. 10. Another large ffount of ditto, never used, cast in Holland. 11. A small quantity of English, new cast by M' Andrews. 12. A small quantity of Great Prim' new cast by ditto. in 13. A very large flfount of Double Pica, new, the largest England. 14. A quantity of two-line English letters. letters of all 15. A quantity of French Cannon, two-line sorts, and a set of silver initial letters. Cases, stands, etc. Five printing presses very good.

John Baskett is chiefly remembered for the magnificent edition of the Bible which he printed in 1716- 1717, in two volumes imperial folio, and which from an error in the headhne of the 20th chapter of St. Luke, where the parable of the Vineyard was

' rendered as the parable of the Vinegar,' has ever ' since been known as the Vinegar Bible.' This sHp was only one of many faults in the edition, which ' earned for it the title of A Baskett-full of printer's errors.' But apart from these errors, the book was has a very splendid specimen of the printer's art, and been described as the most magnificent of the Oxford Bibles. The type, double pica Roman and itaUc, was beautifully cut, and was that which is de- ' scribed in the above Hst as the largest in England.'

It was clearly not one of the founts belonging to the University, for, had it been, Baskett would have had no power to mortgage it. It is also noticeable that ' it was not described as cast in Holland,' as many of the others were, so we may infer that it was cast in From 1700 to 1750 193

England, and an interesting question arises, by whom ? Clearly it was not cast by Mr. Andrews, or Baskett would have said so.

During a great part of his life, Baskett was engaged in litigation over his monopoly of Bible printing, and in spite of the large profits attached to it, he became bankrupt in 1732. Further trouble fell upon him in 1738 by the destruction of his office by fire. He died on 22nd June 1742. At one period he had been in danger of losing his patent altogether, for Queen Anne was induced by Lord Bolingbroke and others to constitute Benja- min Tooke and John Barber to be Royal printers in reversion, in anticipation of the ending of Baskett 's in but Baskett this reversion lease 1739 ; purchased from Barber, andafterwards obtained a renewal of his patent for sixty years, the last thirty of which were subsequently acquired by Charles Eyre for £10,000. John Barber, who for a time held the reversion of Baskett 's patent, was the only printer who has ever held the high office of Lord Mayor of London, and for this reason among others he deserves a brief notice. lie was born of poor parents in 1675, and according to one account was greatly helped in early life by Klkanah Settle, the city poet. He was apprenticed to Mrs. Clark, a printer in Thames Street, and set up for himself in 1700. His first printing-house was in Queen's Head Alley, whence he soon afterwards moved to Lambeth Hill, near Old Fish Street. M 194 English Printing

Accounts differ as to his first work. Curll, in his

Impartial History of the Life, Character, &c., of Mr. John Barber (London, 1741), says that the alderman himself stated that the first fifty pounds he could call his own were earned by printing a pamphlet written Charles D'Avenant while in the by ; Life and Character, another pamphlet printed in the same year for T. Cooper, it is said that it was Defoe's Diet of Poland which brought him the first money he laid up. It is also said that he was greatly indebted to Dean Swift for his rapid advancement. By whatever means it was accomplished, Barber was introduced to Henry St. John, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke, and was engaged as printer to the Ministry, his printing-house becoming the meeting- place of the statesmen, poets, and wits of the day. Barber was himself a genial companion and hard drinker, who spent his money freely, and in this way made many friends. He printed for Dean Swift, for Pope, Matthew Prior, and Dr. King, and was also the printer of nearly all the writings of the versatile and unhappy Mrs. Manley. At the time of the South Sea scheme Barber took

large shares, and, it is said, amassed a considerable fortune before the bubble burst. But he was indebted mainly to the patronage of Lord Boling- broke for his success as a printer. Through that statesman he obtained the contract for printing the votes of the House of Commons, and by the same From 1700 to 1750 195 influence he became printer of the London Gazette, The Examiner, and Mcreator, printer to the City of London, and finally received from the Queen the reversion of the office of Royal printer, which he soon after rehnquished to Baskett for ;£i5oo. Elected as alderman of Baynard Castle ward, Barber filled the office of Sheriff, and in 1733 became Lord Mayor of the City of London. As Lord Mayor, he gained great popularity from his opposition to the Excise Bill, and by permitting persons tried and acquitted at the Old Bailey to be discharged without any fees. He died on the 22nd January 1740. Much amusement, not altogether unmixed with uneasiness, was caused in the printing trade between 1727 and 1740 by a futile attempt to introduce stereotyping. A Scotch printer having complained to a goldsmith in Edinburgh of the vexatious delays and inconvenience of having to send to London or Holland for type, it occurred to William (ied, the goldsmith in question, that the transition from founding single letters to founding whole pages should not be diflicult. He made several experiments, and at length satisfied himself that his scheme was practicable. Tn 1727 he entered into a contract with an Edinburgh printer to carry out the invention, but after two years his partner withdrew, being alarmrd at the probable cost. Ged next entered into ])artncrship with William Fenncr, a stationer in London, by whom he was 196 English Printing introduced to Thomas James, the founder, and a company was formed, in July 1729, to work the scheme. But James, perhaps influenced by the

' representations of his compositors,' whom the new invention threatened with the loss of work, instead of helping, did his utmost to ruin the undertaking and its inventor. Instead of supplying the best and newest type from which the matrices might be made, he furnished the worst, whilst his workmen damaged the formes. Much the same happened at Cambridge, where Ged was for a time installed as printer to the University. He struggled against the opposition so far as to produce two Prayer Books, but such was the animosity shown to the new invention, that the books were suppressed by authority, and the plates broken up. To add further to his troubles, dissension broke out between James and Fenner, and, disheartened and ruined, he returned to Edinburgh. There another attempt was made by his friends to produce a book, but no compositor could be found to set up the type, and it was only by Ged's son working at night that the edition of Sallust, and a few theological books, were finished and printed at Newcastle. Ged died in 1749, and his sons subsequently emi- grated to the West Indies. Next to the King's printing-house, the press of which we have the most accurate knowledge at this time was that of William Bowyer, the elder and the younger. The seven volumes of Nichols' Literary From 1700 to 1750 197

Anecdotes give a complete record of the work of this printing-house, and from them the following brief account has been taken. \Mlliam Bowyer, the elder, had been apprentice to Miles Flessher, and was admitted to the freedom of the Company of Stationers on 4th October 1686. He started business on his own account in Little Britain in 1699, with a pamphlet of ninety-six pages on the Eikon Basilikc controversy. He afterwards moved into White Friars, where, on the night of 29th January his was to the 1712, printing-office burned ground ; among the works that perished in the flames being almost the whole impression of Atkyn's History of Gloucestershire, Sir Roger L'Estrange's Josefhus, ' printed with a fine Elzevir letter never used be-

' fore the fifteenth of Foedcra ; volume Rymer's ; Thoresby's Ducatus Leodiensis, and an old book, of

' Monarchy, by Sir John Fortescue, in Saxon,' uith

' notes upon it, printed on an 'extraordinary paper

(Xichols' Literary Anecdotes, vol. i. p. 56). This short list of notable works proves that Bowyer had a flourishing business at the time of the catastrophe. A subscription was at once raised for his relief, and £1162 subscribed by the booksellers and printers in a very short time. A royal brief was also granted to him for the same purposes, and by this he received £1377, making a grand total of £2539, with which he began business anew. In remembrance of his misfortune,

Bowyer had several tail-pieces and devices engraved, representing a pha'nix rising from the flames. 198 English Printing

In 1715 Bowyer the elder printed Miss Elstob's Anglo-Saxon Grammar. The types for this were cut by Robert Andrews from drawings made by Humphrey Wanley, and were given to the printer by Lord Chief-Justice Parker. But these types were very indifferently cut. Wanley himself said ' when the alphabet came into the hands of the workman (who was but a blunderer) he could not imitate the fine stroke of the so and regular pen ; that the letters are not only clumsy, but unlike those that I drew,' In 1721 Bowyer printed an edition of Bishop Bull's Latin works in folio, but lost £200 by the impression. The following year his son, William Bowyer the younger, joined him in the business. The younger Bowyer had received a University education, although he never succeeded in taking a degree. He was, however, a highly cultivated man, and employed his pen in many of the controversies of the time, writing Remarks on Mr. Bowman's Visi- tation Sermon in 1731, and on Stephens' Thesaurus in 1733, and in 1744 a pamphlet on the Present State of Europe. But at the beginning of his connection with the printing-house, he was mainly concerned in reading the proofs of the learned works entrusted to his father for printing, and though towards the latter end of the elder Bowyer 's days the son may have taken a more active part in the practical work, as we read of his appointment as printer of the votes in the House of Commons in 1729, and as From 1700 to 1750 199 printer to the Society of Antiquaries in 1736, it was not until his father's death, in 1737, that the sole management of the business devolved upon him. One of the earliest works upon which the younger

' ' Bowyer was employed as reader was Dr. Wil- kins' editon of Selden's Works, printed by Bowyer the elder in six folio volumes in 1722. The publication of this book marks an era in the history of English printing, for the types with which it was printed were cut by William Caslon. This famous type-founder, who by his skill raised the art of printing to a higher level than it had reached since the days of John Day, was born at Cradley, near Hales Owen in Shropshire. We are indebted for his biography partly to Bowyer and partly to Nichols, but it must be confessed that the earlier part of it is vague and unconvincing. Ac- cording to this oft-quoted story, Caslon began life as an engraver of gun-locks, and made blocking tools for binders. This was somewhere about 1716, in which year it is said John Watts, the printer, became his patron, and employed him to cut type punches. Bowyer became acquainted with him from seeing some specimen of his lettering on a book, and took him to the foundry of James, in Bartholomew Close. Bowyer next advanced him some money, as also did Watts, and with these loans he set up for himself, his first essay in type-founding being a fount of Arabic for the Psalter published by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Know- 2 00 English Printing ledge. When he had finished the Arabic, i.e. somewhere about 1724 or 1725, he cut his own name in Roman type and placed it at the foot of the specimen. This attracted the notice of Samuel Palmer, the author of a very unreliable History of Print- ing, and with Palmer, Caslon worked for some time, but at length transferred his services to William Bowyer, for whom he cut the types of the 'Selden.'

It is almost impossible to place any reliance upon so vague and inconclusive a biography as this. There was a belief in the Caslon family that he began letter-cutting before 1720, and the equally vague traditions which point to a later date need not make us treat this as impossible. Was his the unknown hand that cut the double- pica type which Baskett used in printing the ' ' Vinegar Bible in 1716-17 ? A close examination of the types used in that Bible, those used in printing the foho edition of Pope's Iliad, and those of the 'Selden,' reveals a striking resemblance, especially in the form of the italic letter, and at least makes it clear that if the two first- mentioned works were printed with Dutch letter, then it was on the best form of that letter that

Caslon modelled his types. The charm of Caslon 's Roman letter lay in its wonderful regularity as well as in the shape and proportion of the letters. In this respect it was a worthy successor to the best Aldinc founts of the From 1700 to 1750 201 sixteenth century. The itahc was also noticeable for its beauty and regularity. Caslon's superiority over all other letter-cutters, English or Dutch, was quickly recognised, and from this time forward until the close of the century all the best and most important books were printed such with Caslon's letter ; the old letter-founders, as James and Grover, being entirely neglected, and even such a powerful rival as John Baskerville being unable to compete Avith him. In addition to the printers in London already noticed, there were two others who must not be forgotten. Samuel Richardson, author of Pamela, Clarissa Harlowe, and Sir Charles Grandison, was by trade a printer. Born in Derbyshire, of humble parents, in 1689, he was apprenticed to Mr. John Wilde, a printer in London, whom he served for seven years. He took up his freedom in 1706, and started business for himself in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street. Among his carHcst patrons was the Duke of Wharton, for whom he printed some six numbers of a paper called the True Briton, and the Right Hon. Arthur Onslow, by whose interest he obtained the printing of the Journals of the House of Commons. IjuI he did some better work than this, as in 1732 he printed for Andrew Millar a good edition in folio of Churchill's Voyages, and in 1733 the second volume of Dc Thou's History, a work in seven folio vohimcs, edited by Samuel Buckley, his share in which re- flects credit on Rirhardson as a printer. P)Clwcen 202 English Printing

1736-37 he printed The Daily Journal, and in 1738 the Daily Gazetteer, and in 1740 the newly-formed Society for the Encouragement of Learning entrusted to him the printing of the first volume of The Negociations of Sir Thomas Roe, in foho. In this the text was printed in the same type as the De Thou, but the dedication was in a fount of double pica Roman. This work, which was in- tended to have been in six volumes, was never completed. Richardson's work as an author began in 1741 with the publication of Pamela, in four volumes, duodecimo, printed at his own press. Clarissa Harlowe appeared in 1747-48, and in 1753 his final novel, Sir Charles Grandison. Through the treachery of one of his workmen in the printing-office, the Dublin booksellers were enabled to issue an edition of Sir Charles Grandison before the work had left

Richardson's press. He vented his aggrieved feel- ings by printing a pamphlet. The Case of Samuel Richardson of London, Printer. In 1755 Richardson rebuilt his premises, and in 1760 he bought half the patent of law printing, which he shared with Catherine Lintot. He died on the 4th July 1761, his business being afterwards carried on by his nephew, William Richardson. The other press to which reference has been made was that of Henry W'oodfall. In the first series of Notes and Queries (vol. xi. pp. -^yj, 418) an anony- mous contributor supplied some very interesting From 1700 to 1750 203 and valuable notes drawn from the ledgers of that printer between the years 1734 and 1747. Woodfall's printing was broadly divided into two classes, 'gentlemen's work' and 'booksellers' work,' and the second is naturally the more interesting. Among those for whom he printed were Bernard and Henry Lintot, Robert Dodsley, Andrew Millar, and La^\lon Gulliver. Against Bernard Lintot is the following entry :

Deer. 15th, 173s — Printing the first volume of Mr. Pope's Works, Cr., Long Primer, 8vo, 3000 (and 75 fine), @ ^2, 2 J. per sheet, 14 sheets and a half . 30 09 o Title in red and black .....11 Paid for 2 reams and ^ of writing demy . 2 16 3

On 15th May 1736, Woodfall enters to Henry Lintot—

The //tati of Homer by Mr. ]*ope, demy. Long Primer and lirevier. No. 2000 in

6 vols., 6S sheets and \ (^ £2, 2s. per sheet Z'43 '7

Under Dodsley 's account is entered on 12th May ^737—

Printing the frsi Epislle of /he Second Hook of Horace Iinitatcd, folio, double size. Poetry, No. shts at 2000, and 150 fine, [seven] , 27J. per slit 9 09 o May 18, 1737. 150 fol. i\\.\cs, Second I{ook of hpistles 40

A few weeks later Woodfall received an order from Lawton Gulliver for 1500 crown octavo copies of 204 English Printing

Epistles of Horace, and loo line or large paper copies. The second edition of Pope's Works was also printed by \\'oodfall for Henry Lintot, the order being for 2000.

For Andrew Millar, Woodfall printed the following works of Thomson the poet—

Oct. 14th 1734. Spring, a poem, 8vo, 250 copies. Jan. 8th i73|. Liberty, a poem, ist part cr. Svo, No. 3000, and 250 fine copies.

Of the 4th and 6th parts only 1250 copies were printed.

June 6th, 1738, Mr. Thomson's Works. Vol. I. No. looo, Svo.

With the issue of the second volume the number was increased to 1500. The Seasons were printed on 19th June 1744, in octavo. There were 1500 errata in the work, and a

' special charge of £2, 4s. was made for divers and repeated alterations.' Among the miscellaneous writers whose works were passed through the elder Woodfall 's press was the Rev. John Peters, against whom he entered an account, dated 17th July 1735, for printing Thoughts concerning Religion, 4to, 16 sheets. This gentleman was a literary shark, ready to devour any unpro- tected morsel that came in his way. The work above mentioned, and another printed by Woodfall in 1732, called A Letter to a Bishop, were afterwards discovered to be from the pen of Duncan Forbes, From 1700 to 1750 205 and were published in an edition of his works printed in Edinburgh and London in 175 1. A lawsuit was at once commenced by George \\'oodfall and John Peters against the publishers of Forbes' works, the name of Messrs. Rivington being pro- minently mentioned, and the defendants, in their answer, stated that the two works in question were well known to have been written by Duncan Forbes, ^ and that the MS. was in the possession of his family. This little incident, taken in conjunction with Henry Woodfall's connection with E. Curll and the letters of Pope, and the story told by Thomas Gent of the printing of The Bishop of Rochester's Effigy^ shows that he was a worthy disciple of lago in the matter of money-getting.^ Mention of Thomas Gent leads naturally to a study of the provincial press of this period. By the middle of the eighteenth century presses were established in almost every town of any size. All that is attempted here is to give a sketch of the more important. In the previous chapter it has been shown how the munificence of Bishop Fell and Francis Junius furnished the University of Oxford with an unusually large stock of excellent letter of all descriptions, so that it was in a position to do better work than any other house in the kingdom. Its productions, during the first twenty years of the eighteenth ccn-

' Cli.Tnccry I'locccdinj^'s, 1753 (Kccurd Office). * AoUs and Queries, First Scries, vol. xii. p. 197. 2o6 English Printing tury, were in every way worthy of its reputation, and some of its productions deserve special mention. In 1705 Hickes' Linguarum Vett. SepterUrionalhim Thesaurus was issued in three large folio volumes of great beauty. The work required many unusual founts, and these were mainly furnished from the bequest of Junius. In 1707 the University published Mill's Greek Testament, which Wood in his Athence Oxonienses

(vol. ii. p. 604) says had been begun in 1681 at Bishop Fell's printing-house near the theatre. The double pica italic used in this was a grand letter. Both the foregoing works were ornamented with handsome initial letters, and head and tail pieces engraved by M. Burghers, at that time probably the best engraver in this country. Many classical works were also produced in the same sumptuous manner, notably Hudson's edition of the Works of Dionysius, 1704, which it is difficult to praise too highly. The copies measured nearly eighteen inches in height, was thick and the Greek and Latin the paper good ; texts were printed side by side, with notes at the foot, yet ample margins were left. In fact it is one of the finest examples of English printing of this period to be met with. In Cambridge the press was also active. Cor- nelius Crownfield, who had been Inspector of the Press in the University since 1698, was nominated University printer on nth February I70f, and issued an edition of Eusebius in three folio volumes in 1720. From 1700 to 1750 207

Much of his work consisted of reprints in octavo and duodecimo of classical works for the use of the scholars, and repeated editions of the Bible and Book of Common Prayer, full of errors, and badly printed. We may notice, however, an edition of Butler's Hudibras, edited by Zachary Grey, in two octavo volumes, with Hogarth's plates, and two books by Conyers Middleton, Bihliothec(E Cantabri- giensis, 1723, quarto, and A Dissertation cojicerning the Origin of Printing in England. Among the earliest provincial presses at work in the beginning of the eighteenth century was that at Norwich, where Francis Burges was established in the year 1701. Thomas Tanner, afterwards Bishop of St. Asaph, sent John Bagford a broadside, printed by that printer, a list of the clergy that were to preach in the cathedral of Norfolk from ist Novem- ber 1701 until Trinity Sunday following. In a MS.

note at the foot Tanner says :

'Dr. liAf.KORn,— When you were at Cambridge, I thought you would have come to Norwich. I send this to put among your other collections of printers. It is the first thing that was ' ever printed here.'

In this statement, however, Tanner was wrong, unless we suppose this broadside to have been printed nearly five weeks in advance, as there had appeared, on 27th September 170J, Some Observa- tions on the Use and Origitval of the Noble Art and Mystery of Printing, by Francis Burges, which is

' Marl. MS. 5906. 2o8 English Printing

also claimed as the first book printed at Norwich since the sixteenth century. There is also evidence that Burges began to issue a newspaper called The Norwich Post early in September. Among his other work of that year were sermons by John Jeffrey and John Graile, and Humphrey Prideaux's Direc- tions to ChuYchvDardens for the Faithful Discharge of

their Offices. For the Use of the Archdeaconry of Suffolk. (Norwich 1701, quarto.) Francis Burges died in January 1706, leaving the business to his widow, who in the following year printed and published a little tract of eight quarto pages, with the title, A true description of the City of Norwich both in its ancient and modern state.

Meanwhile, in November of the preceding year, a second press was started in the town by Henry Crossgrove, who began to issue a paper called the Norwich Gazette in 1706. Burges 's business seems to have been taken by Freeman Collins, a printer from London, with whom Edward Cave, the editor of The Gentleman's Maga- zine, was associated for a time, who printed from the same address, in 1713, Robert Pate's Complete Syntax. He in his turn was succeeded by Benjamin Lyon, who in 1718 reprinted the True Description, as The History of the City of Norwich . . . To which is added Norfolk's Furies : or a view of Kelt's Camp^ (Norwich. Printed by Benj Lyon near the Red- well, for Robert Allen and Nich Lemon. 1718. 8vo. pp. 40.) He added to this some lists of bishops, &c,. From 1700 to 1750 209

' and a Chronological Account of Remarkable Accidents and Occurrences, to date,' in which the

following entries occur :

' 1 701. The first printing office was set up in Norwich, near the Red-well, by Francis Burges. ' 1706. Sam. Hashart a destiller, set up a Printing Office, in Magdalen St., and sent for Henry Cross-grove from London to be his journeyman.'

Crossgrove died on 12th November 1744, being succeeded by William Chase, who had been printing since 171 1, and who established the Norwich Mercury in 1727. At Bristol the press that William Bonny had established in 1695 continued to flourish until 1713. About November 1702 he began to issue a weekly called the Bristol Post- which ran until paper Boy , 1712, when it was either replaced or supplanted by Samuel Farley's Bristol Postman} The Parleys were noted printers in the \\'est of England at this time, and the above-named Samuel must not be confounded with Samuel Farley the Exeter printer. In Cirencester printing began in 1718, in which year Thomas Hinton brought out the first number of the Cirencester Post, and the Gloucester Journal was printed in that city by R. Raikes and W.

Dicey on 9th April 172 J. Robert Raikes continued printing there till 1750, and was succeeded by his son Robert, the founder of Sunday Schools.''

* 1 Fyelt and Bazclcy, Itihliog. Man, of Glouc. LiUra(i(rc,\o\. iii. p. 339. * AUnult, /iiOiiopaf/iita, v«l. ii. p. 302. O 2IO English Printing In the neighbouring county of Devon the Exeter press, finally established after many vicissitudes in i6g8 by Samuel Darker, is found busily at work in 1701, Darker having been joined by Samuel Farley, whose relation to the Samuel Farley of Bristol offers an opportunity to some cunning genealogist to reap distinction. In 1701 Farley issued by himself John

Prince's Danmonii Orientales Illusires ; or, The Worthies of Devon, a work of 600 folio pages, with coats of arms. It was certainly one of the largest works printed at that time by any provincial press outside the Universities. In point of workmanship all that can be said for it is that it was no worse than the bulk of the work turned out by provincial it furnishes its own criticism in a list presses ; and of errata on the last page, which closes with the words, 'with many others too tedious to insert.' Thomas Tanner, writing to Browne Willis in 1706, says that he has heard of a bi-weekly paper printing at Exeter. No copy of an Exeter paper of so early a date is known. In 1705 Farley was joined by Joseph Bliss, and issued several books but the jointly they ; partnership lasted a very short time, as by 1708 Joseph Bhss had set up for himself in the Exchange. On 24th September 1714, Samuel Farley issued the first number of The Exeter Mercury, or Weekly Intelligence of News, which in the next year he transferred to Philip Bishop. In 1715 also Joseph Bliss started a rival sheet called the Protestant From 1700 to 1750 211

Mercury ; or, The Exeter Post-Boy, from his new printing-house near the London Inn. Meanwhile Farley appears to have left Exeter, for on 27th Sep- tember 1715 he published the first number of the Salisbury Post-Man. In 1717 Andrew Brice, the most important of Exeter printers, began to print,

' his address then being At the Head of the Serge Market in Southgate Street,' from which he issued, some time in 17 18, a paper called the Post-Master, or the Loyal Mercury. The history of this printer is too lengthy to be told here, and has already been ably written by Dr. T. N. Brushfield {The Life and Bibliography of A ndrew Brice). Farley 's name occurs again in 1723, when he returned to Exeter and started Farley's Exeter fournal. In November 1727 the burial of Samuel Farley is recorded in the registers at St. Paul's, Exeter. He was succeeded in business by an Edward Farley. Another provincial press that revived very early in the eighteenth century was that of Worcester. It had been silent for upwards of a century and a half but in a from ; June 1709 printer London, named Stephen Bryan, set up a press, and started a newspaper called the Worcester Postman. In 1722 the title was altered to the Worcester Post, or

Western fournul. Bryan died in 1718, but just previous to his death he assigned his paper to Mr. H. Bcrrow, who then gave it the name it has ever since borno, tliat of Bcrrow's Worcester fournal. Hazlitt, in liis (ollcctions and Notes (jrd Scries, 212 English Printing

p. 282), mentions a book entitled Tonhridgialia, or

' ye pleasures of Tunhridge, a poem, as printed at Mount Sion at ye end of ye Upper Walk at Tun- bridge Wells,' 1705. At Canterbury printing was revived in 1717, and a very interesting record of it is in the British Museum in the form of a broadside with the following title :

' A List of the names of the Mayor, Recorder, Aldermen & Common Council of the City of Canter- bury Who (In the year of our Lord 1717) promoted and encouraged the noble Art and Mystery of Printing in this City and County. Canterbury, Printed by J. Abree for T. James, S. Palmer, and W. Hunter, 1718.' This James Abree died in 1768 at the age of seventy-seven. Turning northward the most important presses were those of York and Newcastle.

At York, John White, who had settled in the city in 1680, was actively engaged in business in 1701, and he remained the sole printer there until his death in the year 171 5. By his will, dated 31st July 1 71 4, he gave his wife Grace White the use of one full half of his printing tools and presses, etc., for her life. And after her death he gave the same to his grandson, Charles Bourne, to whom he bequeathed the remaining half of his printing implements immediately upon his death. To John White, his son, he devised his real estate. From 1700 to 1750 213

On the 23rd February 1718-19, Grace White issued the first York newspaper, The York Mer- cury. Upon her death in 1721 the printing-house was carried on by Charles Bourne until 1724, when he was in turn succeeded by Thomas Gent, who had served under John White in 1714-15, and married the widow of Charles Bourne. Davies in his

Memoirs of the York Press (pp. 144 et scq.) gives a detailed and interesting biography of this printer, who, he says, has obtained a wider celebrity than any other York typographer. Gent was an engraver as well as printer, and was the author of a History of York, and other works. As a printer

his work was wretched ; there is little to be said for him as an engraver, while as an author he was below mediocrity. Nevertheless, he deserves credit for the interest he took in the history of York. His history of that city was published in small octavo in 1730, and he followed it up in 1735 with

Annates Regiodtnii Hiillini ; or. The History of the Royal and Beautiful town of Kingston upon Hull, also an octavo. These works were quickly overshadowed by Drake's History, and from this time forward Gent's fortunes began to decline. He made an enemy of John White, the son of his old employer, with the result that \\hitc set up a press at York in 1725, and issued the first number of The York Courant, a weekly paper, but sold it and the business to Alexander Staples ten years later. Staples in turn 2 14 English Printing was succeeded by Csesar Ward and Richard Chandler —the first a bookseller in York, the second in but Chandler suicide in London ; committed 1744, and left Ward to carry on the business alone. John Gilfillan was another printer at work in the city during this period. Thomas Gent lived to the age of eighty-seven, dying on the 19th May 1778. In Newcastle, John White, the son of the York printer of that name, began printing in 1708. He started the Newcastle Couranf, the first number of which appeared in 1711. In 1761 the firm became John White and Co., and in 1763 John White and T. Saint. White died in 1769, when he is said to have been the oldest printer in the kingdom. As has been noted, from 1725 to 1735 he had carried on a press at York in opposition to T. Gent. One or two other printers are found here for short periods, but little is known about them. Among other towns possessing presses early in were— this century Nottingham, 1710 ; Chester, and 1711 ; Liverpool, 1712 ; Birmingham, 1716 ; Manchester, 1719. In America the number of printing presses increased but slowly during the first half of the eighteenth century. William Bradford in New York continued the only printer in that province for thirty years. He died on the 23rd May 1752, at the age of ninety-two. For fifty years he had been printer to the Government, and among the From 1700 to 1750 215

numerous books that came through his press were the Book of Common Prayer in quarto, in 1709, the only issue in America before the Revolution, a venture by which he is said to have lost heavily. He also a Mohawk in printed Prayer-book quarto ; this was issued in 1715. On the i6th October 1725 he began to publish a weekly paper called the New York Gazette, and continued it until his retirement from business. In 1726 a German named John Peter Zenger set up as a printer in New York. He is chiefly remembered as the printer of the second New York newspaper, the New York Weekly Journal, the first number of which was wrongly dated 5th October 1733, instead of 5th November. The paper involved the printer in several actions for libel, and led to some lively passages with \\illiam Bradford. Zenger is believed to have died about 1746. Bradford was succeeded as printer to the Government by James Parker, one of his apprentices, who is described as a neat workman. He continued the New York Gazette, with the alternative title, or Weekly Post Boy. He also issued in 1767 an edition of the Psalms in metre, one of the earliest books printed from type cast in America.

In 175J Parker look into partnersliij) William

VVcyman, but the connection lasted hut .1 short time, Weyman setting up f(jr himself in 1759. Parker also established presses at New Haven and Woodbridge in New Jersey. Among the later 2i6 English Printing in York printers New were Hugh Guine (1750-1800) ; John Holt (1750-84), printer to the State during the Robert war ; Hodge (1770-1813) ; and Frederick Shober (1772-1806). Philadelphia possessed only one printer until 1723—Andrew Bradford, son of William Bradford, of New York. In 1723 Samuel Keimer set up near the Market House. It was this printer whom Benjamin Franklin worked for in his early days. Bradford started the American Weekly Mercury on November and the Tuesday, 22nd 1709 ; Pennsyl- vania Gazette, afterwards carried on by Franklin and Meredith, was first printed by Keimer. Andrew Bradford died in 1742. Perhaps the most notable of Keimer 's books was the folio edition of Sewell's

History of the Quakers, which he began in 1725. It was a work of upwards of seven hundred pages. Keimer soon found that he had taken the contract at a ruinous rate. It was only by the help of Franklin and Meredith that he was enabled to finish it in 1728. Benjamin Frankhn's history hardly needs retell- ing. His career as a printer began in the shop of his brother James at Boston in 1717. Differences arose between them which ended in Franklin's set-

ting out for New York. Work was not to be had there, and by the advice of William Bradford he moved on to Philadelphia. There for some months he worked for Samuel Keimer until, deluded by the promises of Governor Keith, he took ship for From 1700 to 1750 217 England with a view of obtaining materials for a printing office. Wliile in England he worked for James Watts in Bartholomew Close, and James Palmer. On his return to America he once more entered Keimer's office as a journeyman. But after a short time, in company with Hugh Meredith, he set up in business for himself. He was the proprietor and printer of Poor Richard's Almanack, which became celebrated, and also of the Pennsylvania Gazette. After a long, prosperous career Franklin died, on 19th April 1790, at the age of eighty-five. Boston was the home of more printers than any other place during the eighteenth century. To give anything like a history of even a few of them would be beyond the limits of this work. Only one or two of the more notable can be even noticed. Thomas Fleet arrived in Boston in 1712, set up as carried on busi- a printer, and for nearly fifty years ness there. His issues were principally pamphlets for booksellers, small books for children, and ballads. He was also the proprietor of a newspaper called the Weekly Rehearsal, first begun in September left three 1731. At his death, in July 1758, he sons, two of whom succeeded him in business. set in Prison In 1 718 Samuel Knecland \\\) Lane, and his printing-house continued for eighty years. He was one of the printers of the Boston Gazette, and he started besides several other journals.

Thomas in his history (vol. i. p. 207) says that Knee- land, in company with pjartholomcw Green, printed 2i8 English Printing a small quarto edition of the English Bible with Mark Baskett's imprint, but this is not confirmed. Kneeland died on 14th December 1769. Another celebrated printer in the city of Boston was Gamahel Rogers, who began business about 1729. In 1742 he entered into partnership with Daniel Fowle. In the following year they issued the first numbers of the American Magazine, and in 1748 started the Independent Advertiser. The partnership with Fowle was dissolved in 1750. Rogers subsequently moved to the western part of the town, but suffered from a fire, which destroyed his plant. He died in 1775- Daniel Fowle, on the dissolution of his partnership with Rogers, set up for himself. He was in arrested 1754 for printing a pamphlet reflecting on some members of the House of Representatives, and was thrown into prison for several days. Upon his release, he at once left the town and set up in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where he started the New Hampshire Gazette. He was succeeded in his Boston business by his brother Zachariah Fowle, who continued printing there until the Revolution, when he also retired to New Hampshire, where he died in 1776. CHAPTER X

FROM 1750 TO 1800

The improvement in printing which Caslon had begun quickly spread to other parts of the kingdom, even as far north as Scotland, where, before the middle of the century, there was established at Glasgow a press that became notable for the beauty of its productions. Robert and Andrew Foulis, the founders of this

press, were the sons of Andrew Faulls and Marion' Paterson, Robert being born at Glasgow on 20th April 1707, and his brother on 23rd November 1712. Robert Foulis was apprenticed to a barber, but his love for literature led him to study at the Uni- versity, where lie attended the moral philosophy lectures of Francis liutchcson, who advised him to

become a bookseller and printer. Id's brother, Andrew, entered the University at a later date, destined for the ministry, and during their vacations they travelled throughout luigland and on the Continent. In the course of these travels they sought for and brought back with them many rare and beautiful books, and gained a wide knowledge of the book trade. 319 2 20 English Printing At length, in 1741, Robert Foulis set up as a bookseller in Glasgow. In some of his earlier publications will be found lists of books printed and sold by him, which are very interesting. One of these, which enumerates fifteen books, includes a Greek Testament, Buchanan's edition of the

Psalms, Burnet's Life of the Earl of Rochester, seven or eight classics, among which were a Cicero, Juvenal, Cornelius Nepos, Phsedrus, and Terence, and two of Tasso's works. The Terence was printed for him by Robert Urie, and shows some excellent founts of small italic and Roman. Robert Foulis seems to have begun printing on his own account in 1742, and among his earliest patrons was Pro- fessor Hutcheson, for whom he printed a treatise entitled MetaphysiccE Synopsis, a duodecimo of ninety pages, and a work on Moral Philosophy of three hundred and thirty pages. He also printed in the same year the second and third editions of a sermon preached by William Leechman before the of Synod Glasgow and Ayr, The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurclius Antoninus, and editions of Cicero and Phaedrus. All these were in duodecimo or small octavo, printed in a clear readable type, that probably came from Urie's foundry. On the 31st March 1743, Robert Foulis was appointed printer to the University of Glasgow, and published Demetrius Phalerus de Elocutione in two sizes, quarto and octavo. This was the first book printed at Glasgow in Greek type, the Greek and Latin render- From 1750 to 1800 221 ings being printed on opposite pages—the Latin in a fount of English Roman that cannot be distinguished from Caslon's letter, while the italic also has a strong resemblance to that of the English founder. Among other productions of the year 1743 was a specimen of another Glasgow man's work, Bishop Burnet's translation of Sir Thomas More's Utopia, to which was prefixed Holbein's portrait of the great Chancellor. In 1744 Dr. Andrew Wilson, who for some years had been furnishing Scotch and Irish printers with types from his foundry, moved to Camlachie, a spot within a mile of Glasgow, and at once began to furnish letter for Robert Foulis. In the same year Robert took his brother Andrew into partnership, and the firm quickly became famous for the beauty and correctness of their classics, beginning with the edition of Horace, which, despite the fact that it had six errors in the text, was called the Immaculate. Other attractive books were the Sophocles of 1745, Cicero in small octavo quarto ; twenty volumes, ; the small f(jlio edition of Calhmachus, which took the silver medal offered in Edinburgh for the finest than ten sheets the book of not fewer ; magnificent Homer, which Reed in his Old English Letter Foun-

' dries describes as for accuracy and splendour tlie finest monument of the I'oulis press.' T-ut the Foulis press did not confine itself to ( ircck and Latin classics. It ]niblishcd several Inn editions of Eng- lish authors, among them a foUo edition of Milton's 222 English Printing

Paradise Lost, and editions of the poems of Gray and Pope. In 1775 Andrew Foulis died suddenly. The blow was very severely felt by his brother, and coming as it did upon the failure of his Academy of Arts, completely crushed him. He removed his art collection to London for sale but here another dis- ; appointment awaited him—the sum realised after paying expenses being fifteen shillings. He returned to Edinburgh, and was on the point of starting for Glasgow when he died on the 2nd June 1776. The Foulis press was carried on by the younger Andrew Foulis until the end of the century. In England, the chief event of this period was the appearance of John Baskerville at Birmingham. John Baskerville was born in 1706 at Wolverley, a village in Worcestershire. For some time he his as a after which earned living writing-master ; he appears to have gone into the japanning trade, and in 1750 embarked some capital in a letter foundry. He appears to have employed the most skilled artists he could obtain, and it is said that he of — — spent upwards ;£6oo some say ;i(^8oo before he obtained a fount to suit him. His letters to Dodsley show how anxious he was to attain perfection. The result of all this care and labour was shown in the quarto edition of Virgil which appeared in 1757, and was followed by quarto editions of Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. The appearance of Baskerville 's publications gave From 1750 to 1800 223 rise to no little controversy, which has continued to the present day. As regards Roman type, there is very little to choose between Caslon's and that of Baskerville, while the italic of Baskerville has some claim to be considered the most beautiful type that had ever been seen in and the ridiculous England ; criticism passed on it that its very fineness was injurious to the eyesight, was shown to be utterly worthless by Franklin's letter to the printer, which is printed in Reed's Old English Letter Foundries. But there are also other features of excellence about these books of Baskerville 's. They are simplicity itself. There is not a single ornament or tail-piece introduced into them to divide the attention. The books were printed with deep and wide margins, and the lines were spaced out with the very best effect.

The first public body to recognise Baskerville 's ability was the University of Oxford, which in July 1758 empowered him to cut a fount of Greek types for 200 guineas. This order proved to be beyond his power. It is generally admitted that his (ireck type was a failure, and he wisely made no further attempts at cutting learned characters. Some of the punches of Baskcrvillc's (ircek types are still preserved at Oxford, and are the only specimens of his foundry that wc have. In his Preface to Paradise Lost, B>askcrville stated

that the extent of his ambition w.is to jirint an

octavo I'raycr Book and a folio Bibk". In conncc- 2 24 English Printing

tion with this ambition, he appHed to the University of Cambridge for appointment as their printer, a privilege which was granted to him, but at the cost of such a heavy premium that he obtained no pecuniary profit from it. The Prayer Book, printed in two forms, appeared in 1760, and the same year saw the prospectus and specimen of the Bible issued, the Bible itself appearing in 1763 in imperial foho. Both are beautiful specimens of the printer's art. But Baskerville soon became disgusted with the ill-natured criticism to which he was subjected, coupled with the failure of booksellers to support him, and was anxious to have done with the business. The year before the publication of the Bible, he wrote to Horace Walpole a letter, given by Reed

(p. 278), in which he says that he is sending specimens of his foundry to foreign courts in the hope of finding among them a purchaser for the whole concern, and during the next few years he was in correspondence with Franklin with the same object. Fortunately for his country, these attempts were unsuccessful during his lifetime, and between the years 1760-73 he produced not only several editions of the Bible and Common Prayer, but the works of vols. the works of Addison, 4 1761, 4to ;

Congreve, 3 vols. 1761, 8vo : JEsop's Fables ; and in 1772 a series of the classics in quarto, which,

' Reed says, suffice, had he printed nothing else, to

' distinguish him as the first typographer of his time

(p. 281). From 1750 to 1800 225

Baskerville died on 8th January 1775, and for a few his widow carried on the but years foundry ; at the same time endeavoured to dispose of it.

Both our Universities refused it, and no London foundry would touch it, because the booksellers would have nothing but the types of Caslon and Jackson. The type was eventually sold in 1779 to the Societe Litteraire-typographique of France for £3700, and was used in a sumptuous edition of the works of Voltaire. Yet one firm was found bold enough to model its letter on that of Baskerville. In 1764 Joseph Fry, a native of Bristol, began letter-founding in that city. He took as a partner WiUiam Pine, proprietor of the Bristol Gazette, but the business was not carried on in their name, but in that of Isaac Moore, their manager. In 1768 they removed the foundry to London, and issued a prospectus. But so strong was the hold which Caslon's foundry had obtained, that they were compelled to recast the of their stock. This took them several whole years ; meanwhile, they issued one or two editions of the Bible in their first fount. In 1776 Isaac Moore severed his connection with the firm. In 1782 Mr. Pine also withdrew, and Joseph Fry admitted his two sons, Edmund and Henry, into partnership. At length in 1785 appeared the first specimen-book of Fry's foundry, and it was frankly admitted in the preface that the founts of Roman and itaHc were modelled on those of Caslon. P 2 26 English Printing

Joseph Fry retired from the business in 1787. Amongst the books printed with his later type may be mentioned the quarto editions of the classics edited by Dr. Homer. Caslon the First died at Bethnal Green on 23rd January 1766. His son, Caslon the Second, died intestate on the 17th August 1778, when the business came to his son, William Caslon the Third. In the same year that Joseph Fry published his Specimen of Types, Caslon the Third also published a specimen-book of sixty-two sheets, in every way worthy of the reputation the firm had estabHshed. It included, besides Romans and italics of great beauty and regularity, every variety of oriental and learned founts, and several sheets of ornaments and flowers, arranged in various designs. This book was dedicated to the King, and contained an address to the reader in which, after reviewing the estab- lishment of the foundry, Caslon referred bitterly to the eager rivalry of other printers and their open confession of imitation. In 1793 Caslon the Third disposed of his share in the Chiswell Street business to his mother and his brother Henry's widow. Mrs. Wilham Caslon, senior, died in October 1795, when the business was sold by auction and bought by Mrs. Henry Caslon for £520. Joseph Jackson, who shared with the Caslons the favour of the London booksellers, was one of two

apprentices formerly in the employ of William From 1750 to 1800 227

Caslon II . Some dispute arose in the foundry about the price of certain work, and Joseph Jackson and Thomas Cottrell, having acted as ringleaders in the movement, were dismissed, and being thrown on their own resources, set up a foundry of their own in Nevil's Court, Fetter Lane. Of the two Jackson proved much the more skilful, but seems to have been of a roving disposition. After working for a year or two with Cottrell he went to sea, leaving Cottrell to carry on the business alone. This he did with a fair measure of success, though his foundry was never at any time a large one. After a few years' absence Jackson returned to England in 1763, and again turned his attention to letter- cutting, serving for a time under his old partner Cottrell but obtained the services ; having and, what was of more value, the pecuniary help of two of Cottrell 's workmen, he set up for himself, and quickly took a foremost place in the trade. Among his most successful work was a fount of English

' Domesday,' for the Domesday Hook published by order of Parliament in 1783, which was preferred to that cut by Cottrell for the same purpose. Jack- son also cut a fount for Dr. Waide's facsimile of tlie Alexandrian Codex with great success. Hut perhaps his most successful effort was the two-line English which he cut for Macklin's edition of the Hible, begun in 1789. At the time of liis doatli in 1792 he was at work upon a fount of double pica for Bowyer's edition of Hume's lli^lory uj England. 22 8 English Printing After his death his foundry was purchased by WilHam Caslon III.

Both Macklin's Bible and Hume's History were printed at the press of Thomas Bensley in Bolt Court, Fleet Street. As a printer of sumptuous books Bensley had only one rival, William Bulmer, who is generally accorded the first place. But Bensley was certainly earlier in the field. His work was quite equal to that of Bulmer, and, apart from this, the world owes more to his enterprise than it has ever yet acknowledged. Thomas Bensley was the son of a printer in the Strand, and in 1783 he succeeded to the business of Edward Allen in Bolt Court, a house adjoining that in which Johnson had lived. He at once turned his attention to printing as a fine art. Dibdin, in his Bibliographical Decameron (vol. ii. p. 397, &c.), gives a list of the works printed by Bensley, and says that he began with a quarto edition of Lava- ter's Physiognomy in 1789, following this with an octavo edition of Allan Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd in 1790. In this list, however, Dibdin has omitted the folio edition of Burger's poem Leonora, printed by Bensley in 1796, with designs by Lady Diana Beauclerc. In 1797 he printed a very beautiful edition of Thomson's Seasons, in royal folio, with engravings by Bartolozzi and P. W. Tomkins from pictures by W. Hamilton. But the chief glories of his press are the Bible and first in but Hume's History. The was begun 1789 ; From 1750 to 1800 229

Jackson's death caused some delay when the book of Numbers had been reached, owing to more type being required. For some reason, not clearly shown, Bensley would not employ Caslon, but applied to Vincent Figgins, who for ten years had been in the service of Jackson, to complete the type. Figgins' foundry was in Swan Yard, Holborn, where he had established himself after Jackson's death in 1792. He succeeded ^^ith the task set him, and his type, which was an exact facsimile of Jackson's, was brought into use in Deuteronomy. The whole work was completed in seven volumes, in the year 1800, and this date on the but the appears title-page ; dedication to the King was dated 1791, and the plates, which were the work of Loutherbourg, West, Hamilton, and others, were variously dated between those years. The text was printed in double columns, in a handsome two-line English, with the headings to chapters in Roman capitals, no italic type being used, and no marginalia. Robert I'owyer's edition of Ilumc was in the press at the time of Jackson's death, but was not completed until 1806. The type used in this is a double pica, and the founder, it is said, declared

' that it should be the most exquisite performance of the kind in this or any other country.' He died before its completion, and the work was completed but the book is a to by Figgins ; lasting memorial the skill both of the founder and the printer. In January 1791 appeared the first number of 230 English Printing

Boydell's Shakespeare. The history of this notorious undertaking was briefly this. Boydell was an art pubhsher in Pall Mall, where he had established a gallery and filled it with the work of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Benjamin West, Opie, and Northcote, chiefly in Shakespearian subjects. George Nicol the bookseller proposed to the Boydells that William Martin, brother of Robert Martin of Birmingham, should be employed to cut a set of types with which to print an edition of Shakespeare's works, to be illustrated with the drawings then in Boydell's gallery. This William Martin had learnt his art in the of Baskerville and such is the foundry ; irony of fate, that less than twenty years after the death of that eminent founder, his work, scorned by the booksellers of London in his own day, was imitated in what was certainly one of the most pretentious books that had ever come from the English press. The printer selected for the work was William Bulmer, a native of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where he was apprenticed to Mr. Thomson, the printer, of Burnt House Entry, St. Nicholas Churchyard. At that time he formed a friendship with Thomas Bewick, the engraver, who in his Memoir

' ' tells us that Bulmer used to prove his cuts for him.

After serving his time, Bulmer came to London and entered the printing-office of John Bell, who was then issuing a miniature edition of the poets, A fortunate accident won him his acquaintance From 1750 to 1800 231 with Boydell and Nicol, and so led to his subsequent employment at the Shakespeare press. The Shakespeare was followed by the works of Milton in three volumes folio in 1794-5-7, and again in 1795 by the Poems of Goldsmith and Par- nell in quarto. In the advertisement to this work, Bulmer pointed out how much had been done by English printers within the last few years to raise the art of printing from the low depth to which it had fallen—a work in which the Shakespeare Press had borne no little part. He went on to say that much pains had been taken with this edition of Gold- smith to make it a complete specimen of the arts of type and block printing. The types were Martin's, the woodcuts Bewick's, and the paper Whatman's. One copy of this book was printed on white satin, and three on English vellum. Among the books that appeared within the last five years of the century was an edition of Lucretius in three volumes large quarto, which certainly ranks for beauty of type and regularity of printing with any book of that period. Like most of llic works of Baskorville, this book was quite free from ornament, and claims admiration only from the excellence of the press-work. 'J'he notes were the printed in double columns in small pica, text itself in double pica. In the whole three volumes not a do7x-n printer's errors have been found. This work came from the press of Archibald Hamilton. Time has not dealt kindly with some of these 232 English Printing

' ' specimens of what was called fine printing. After the lapse of a century, we begin to see that though the type and press-work were all that could be desired, and placed the English printers on a level with the best of those on the Continent, there was something radically wrong with the production of illustrated books. Whether it was due to the ink, or to the paper, or, as some suppose, to in- sufficient drying, in all these sumptuous volumes the oil has worked out of the illustrations, leaving an ugly brown stain on the opposite pages, and totally destroying the appearance of the books. This applies not only to large and small illustrations, but in many cases to the ornamental wood blocks used for head and tail pieces. In Mackhn's Bible

' ' and in the Milton printed at the Shakespeare Press, this discoloration has completely ruined what were undoubtedly, when they came from the press, extremely beautiful works. Before leaving the work of the eighteenth century, a word or two must be said about the private presses that were at work during that time. The first place must, of course, be given to that at Strawberry Hill. None of the curious hobbies ridden by Horace Walpole became him better, or was more useful, than his fancy for running a printing-press. He was not devoid of taste, and though no doubt he might have done it better, he carried this idea out very well. The productions of his press are good examples of printing, and are far above any of the From 1750 to 1800 233 other private press work of the eighteenth century. His type was a neat and clear one, though somewhat small, and the ornaments and initial letters introduced into his books were simple and in keeping with the general character of the types, without being in any sense works of art. The following brief account of the Strawberry Hill press is compiled from Mr. H. B. W'heatley's article in Bibliographica, and from Austin Dobson's delightful Horace Wal- pole, a Memoir, 1893. The press was started in August 1757 with the

' ' publication, for R. Dodsley, of two Odes by ' Gray. I am turned printer, and have converted a little cottage into a printing office,' he tells one friend ' ; and to another he writes, Elzevir, Aldus, and Stephens are the freshest persons in my ' and to the ' he writes memory ; referring Odes,' to John Chute in July 1757, 'I found him ((jray) in town last he his two week ; had brought Odes to be printed. I snatched them out of Dodsley 's hands.'

W'alpole's first printer was William Robinson, an Irishman, who remained with liiii) iov two years. The 'Odes' were followed by Paul Hentzner's A Journey into Englajid, of which only 220 copies were printed. In April 1758 came the two volumes of Wal pole's Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors, of which 300 copies were printed and sold so rapidly, that a second edition— not printed at Strawberry Hill—was called for before the end of the year. 2 34 English Printing

In 1760 W'alpole wrote to Zouch, in reference to

' an edition of Liican, Liican is in poor forwardness. I have been plagued with a succession of bad printers, and am not got beyond the fourth book.' It was pubUshed in January 1761, and in the following year appeared the first and second volumes of Anecdotes of Painting in England, with plates and portraits,

' and having the imprint, Printed by Thomas Farmer at Strawberry Hill, md.cclxii.' Then another difficulty appears to have arisen with the printers, and the third volume, published in 1763, had no printer's name in the imprint. The fourth volume, not issued till 1780, bears the name of Thomas Kirgate, who seems to have been taken on in 1772, and held his post until Walpole's death. Between 1764 and 1768 the Strawberry Hill press was idle, but in the latter year Walpole printed in octavo 200 copies of a French play entitled Cornelie Vestale, Tragedie, and from that time down to 1789 it continued at work at intervals, its chief productions being Memoires du Comte de Grammont, 1772, 4to, of which only 100 copies were printed, twenty- live of which went to Paris The a ; Sleep Walker, in two 8vo the comedy acts, 1778, ; A description of villa of Mr. Horace Walpole, 1784, 4to, of which were 200 copies printed ; and Hieroglyphic Tales, 1785, 8vo. Next to the press of Horace Walpole, that of George Allan, M.P. for Durham, at the Grange, Darlington, must be noticed. The owner was an From 1750 to 1800 235 enthusiastic antiquary, and he used his press chiefly for printing fugitive pieces relating to the history of the county of Durham. The first piece with a date was Collections relating to St. Edmund's Hospital, printed in 1769, and the last a tract which he printed for his friend Thomas Pennant in 1788, entitled Of the Patagonians, of which only 40 copies were worked off.

The productions of his press were very numerous, but of no great merit. Allan was his own composi- to his but his tor, and gave much time hobby ; printer appears to have been a dissolute and dirty workman, who caused him much annoyance and trouble. Altogether it may safely be said that Allan's press cost him a great deal more than it was worth. Another of those who tried their hand at amateur printing was Francis Blomefield, the historian of Norfolk, who started a press at his rectory at Fers- field. Here he printed the first volume of his History in 1736, and also the History of Thctford, a thin quarto volume, in ijy). I'ut the result was an utter failure. The type was bad to begin with, and the attempt to use red ink on the title-pages only made matters worse. Tlic press-work was done it is not to find that carelessly ; and surprising the second volume of the History, published in 1745. was entrusted to a Norwich printer. The celebrated John Wilkes also carried on a private printing-office at his liousc in Great George 236 English Printing Street, Westminster. Three specimens of its work have been identified : An Essay on Woman, 1763, 8vo, of which only twelve copies are said to have been ^ a few of the third of printed ; copies volume the North Briton ; and Recherches sur I'Origine du Despotisme Orientale, ouvrage posthume de M. Bou- langer, 1763, lamo. A note in a copy of this volume states that it was printed by Thomas Farmer, who had also assisted Horace Walpole at the Strawberry Hill press. During the last four years of the century the Rev. John Fawcett, a Baptist minister of some repute, established a press in his house at Brearley Hall, near Halifax, which he afterwards removed to

Ewood Hall. He used it chiefly for printing his own sermons and writings, among the most important issues being The Life of Oliver Heywood, 1796, 216 Miscellanea pp. ; Sacra, 1797 ; A Summary of the Evidences 100 Con- of Christianity , 1797, pp. ; stitution and Order a of Gospel Church, 1797, pp. 58 ; The Sure History of fohn Wise, 1798 ; Gouge's Way of Thriving ; Watson's Treatise on Christian Con- tentment ; and Dr. Williams' Christian Preacher. Most of these were in duodecimo.

The type used in this press was a very good one, and the press-work was done with care. Owing to his growing infirmities Fawcett was obliged to dispose of the press in 1800. There is reason to believe that the above list might be considerably increased. ^ Chalmers' Life of IVilkcs. From 1750 to 1800 237

At Bishopstone, in Sussex, the Rev. James Hui^dis printed several works at his own press, the most important being a series of lectures on poetry, printed in 1797, a quarto of three hundred and thirty pages, and a poem called The Favorite Village, in 1800, a quarto of two hundred and ten pages. To these must be added a press at Lustleigh, in Devon, made and worked by the Rev. William Davy, and at which was printed some thirty copies of his 26 vols. a System of Divinity , 1795, 8vo, copy of which remarkable work is now in the British

is its Museum, and considered one of curiosities ; a press at Glynde, in Sussex, the seat of Lord Hamp-

den, from which at least one work can be traced ; and a press at Madeley, in Shropshire, from which several religious tracts were printed in 1774 by the Rev. John Fletcher, and in 1792 a work entitled Alexander's Feast, by Dr. Beddoes. CHAPTER XI

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

For nearly four centuries after the invention of printing the press in use in all printing-houses remained very much the same in form as that which Caxton's workmen had used in the Red Pale at Westminster. There had been some unimportant alterations made by an Amsterdam printer in the seventeenth cen- but until the 1800 no tury ; year important change in the form or mechanism of the printing-press had ever been introduced. Some such change was sorely needed. The productive powers of the old press were quite unable to keep pace with the ever- increasing demand for books and newspapers that a quickened intelligence and national anxiety had awakened. Up to 1815 England was constantly at war, and men and women alike were eager for news from abroad. In 1800 Charles Mahon, third Earl Stanhope, invented a new printing-press. The Stanhope press substituted an iron frame- work for the wooden body of the old press, thus giving greater soUdity. The platen was double the size of that previously in use, thus allowing a larger sheet to be printed, and a system of levers was adopted in place of the cumbersome handle-bar and 238 The Nineteenth Century 239 screw used in the wooden press. The chief merits of the new invention were increased speed, ease to the workman, evenness of impression, and dura- biUty. Further improvements in the mechanism of hand machines were secured in the Columbia press, an American invention, brought to this country in 1818, and later in the Albion press, invented by R. W. Cope of London, and since that time by many others. Yet even with the best of these improved presses no more than 250 or 300 impressions per hour could be worked off, and the daily output of the most important paper only averaged three or four thousand copies. But a great and wonderful change was at hand. In 1806 Frederick Koenig, the son of a small farmer at Eisleben in Saxon Prussia, came to

England \sith a project for a steam printing press. The idea was not a new one, for sixteen years before an Englishman, named William Nicholson, took out a patent for a machine for printing, which fore- shadowed nearly every fundamental improvement even in machines of the present day. Hut from want of means, or some other cause, Nicholson never actually made a machine. Nor did Koenig 's project meet with much encouragement until he walked into the printing-house of Thomas Bcnslcy of Holt Court, who encouraged the inventor to proceed, and supplied him with the necessary funds. There is reason to believe that Koenig made himself acquainted with the details of Nicholson's patent 240 English Printing

during the time that his machine was building. He also obtained the assistance of Andrew F. Bauer, an ingenious German mechanic. His first patent was taken out on the 29th March 1810, a second in 1812, a third in 1814, and a fourth in 1816. The first machine is said to have taken three years to build, and upon its completion was erected in Bensley's office in Bolt Court. There seems to be considerable uncertainty as to what was the first publication printed on it. Some say it was set to work on the ^ Annual Register, one writer asserting that in April 181 1, 3000 sheets of that publication were printed on it but Mr. in his Modern ; Southward, monograph Prmting, confines himself to the statement that two sheets of a book were printed on the machine in 181 2. Curiously enough neither Bensley's publication, the Annual Register, nor the Gentleman's Magazine, take any notice of the new invention, although in the Getttleman's Magazine for 1811 there is a notice of a printing machine invented at Phila- delphia, which apparently embodied all the same principles as Koenig's {Gent. Mag., vol. Ixxxi.

P- 576). In 1814 John Walter, the second proprietor of the Times, saw Koenig's machine, and ordered one to be supplied to the Times office, the first number printed by steam being that of the 28th November

1 81 4. This machine was a double cylinder, which

' The History of Printing. London : Printed for the Society for Pro- moting Christian Knowledge, 1855, 8vo. The Nineteenth Century 241

printed simultaneously two copies of a forme of the newspaper on one side only. But it was a cumbersome and complicated affair, and its greatest output 1800 impressions per hour. In 1818 Edward Cowper, a printer of Nelson Square, patented certain improvements in printing, these improvements consisting of a better distribu- tion of the ink and a better plan for conveying the sheets from the cylinders. Having joined his brother-in-law, Augustus Applegarth, they pro- ceeded to make certain alterations in Koenig's machine in Bensley's office which at one stroke removed forty wheels, and greatly simplified the inking arrangements. In 1827 they jointly invented a four-cylinder machine, which Applegarth erected for the Times. Tlie distinctive features of this

machine were its ability to print both sides of a sheet at once, its admirable inking apparatus, and great acceleration of speed, the new machine being capable of printing 5000 copies per hour. These machines at once superseded the Koenig, and were to be found in use in all parts of the country for printing newspapers until quite lately. In 1848 the same firm constructed an eight-cylinder vertical machine, which was one of the sights of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Shortly afterwards Messrs. Hoe, of New ^'ork, made fui tlu-r improvements in the mechanism, raising the oiitjtut to 20,000 per hour. All these machines had to be fed willi paper by hand, but in 1869 it occurred to Mr. J. ('. Mac- 242 English Printing donald, the manager of the Times, and Mr. J. C. Calverley, the chief engineer of the same office, that much saving of labour would result if paper could be manufactured in continuous rolls and the result ; of their experiments was the rotary press, which was named after Mr. John Walter, the fourth of that name, then at the head of the Times proprietorship. Since then the improvement in printing machines has steadily continued, and the latest Hoe press as used for printing Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, takes four double-width reels of paper at each end, and is capable of printing, cutting, folding, and auto- matically counting 144,000 copies per hour. These great changes in presses and press-work have occasioned similar changes in type-founding. At the beginning of the century, the firm of Caslon had been given a new lease of life by the energy of Mrs. Henry Caslon, who in 1799 had purchased the foundry, a third share in which a few years earlier had been worth ;^30oo, for the paltry sum of /^25o. She at once set to work to have new founts of type cut, and was ably helped by Mr. John Isaac Drury. The pica then produced was an improvement in the style of Bodoni, and quickly raised the foundry to its old position. Mrs. Caslon took into partnership Nathaniel Catherwood, but both died in the course of the year 1809. The business then came into the hands of Henry Caslon H, who was joined by John James Catherwood. Other notable firms were those already noticed in the last chapter—Mrs. Fry, The Nineteenth Century 243

Figgins, Martin, and Jackson. One and all of these suffered severely from the change in the fashion of types at the beginning of the century, the ugly form of type, known as fat-faced letters, then introduced, remaining in vogue until the revival of Caslon's old- faced type by the younger Whittingham. Upon the advent of machinery and cylinder printing, the use of movable type for printing from was supplemented by quicker and more durable methods, and William Ged's long-despised discovery of stereotyping is now an absolutely necessary adjunct of modern press- work. This, again, was in some measure due to Earl Stanhope, who in 1800 went to Andrew Tilloch, and Foulis, the Glas- gow printer, both of whom had taken out a patent for the invention, and learnt from them the process. He afterwards associated himself with Andrew-

Wilson, a London printer, and in 1802 the plaster process, as it was called, was perfected. This remained in use until 1846, when a system of forming moulds in -papier-mache was introduced, and this was succeeded by the adaptation of the stereo- plates to the rotary machines. It would be foreign to the purpose of this work, which is concerned with printing as applied to books, to attempt to describe the Linotype and its rival processes which have been recently introduced further to facilitate newspaper printing. We must, therefore, return to our book-printers, and note first that the Shakespeare Press of Wiliam liulmer, for 244 English Printing which Martin the type-founder was almost exclu- sively employed, continued to turn out beautiful examples of typographic work during the early years of the nineteenth century. A list of the works issued from this press up to 1817 is given by Dibdin in his notes to the second volume of his Decameron, pp. 384-395. Some of the chief items were The Arabian vols. 8vo Nights Entertainments, 5 1802, ; The Book of Common Prayer, with an introduction The Arch- by John Reeves, 1802, 8vo ; Itinerary of bishop Baldwin through Wales, translated by Sir R. L. vols. Dic- Hoare, 2 1806, 4to ; Richardson's tionary of the Arabic and Persian Languages, 2 vols. Hoare's 1806-10, 4to ; History of Wiltshire, 1812, folio Dibdin 's vols. ; Typographical Antiquities, 4 the author's Bibliothcca 1812, 4to ; and same Spen- ceriana, 4 vols. 1814-15, 8vo, and Bibliographical Decameron, 3 vols. 1817, 8vo. These three last are considered to be some of the best work of this press, which also turned out many books for private circulation only. William Bulmer died on 9th September

1830, after a long and active life, and was succeeded by his partner, Mr. William Nichol. Nor had Thomas Bensley slackened anything of his enthusiasm for fine printing. Twice during the first twenty years of the century he suffered severely by fire : the first time in 1807, when a quarto edition of Thomson's Seasons, an edition of the Works of other books were burnt the Pope, and many ; his second on June 26th, 181 9, when premises were The Nineteenth Century 245 totally destroyed. This was followed by the death of his son, and shortly afterwards he retired from business, and died on nth September 1835. Not only was he an excellent printer, but he did more than any other man of his time to introduce the improved printing machine into this country. John Nichols was another of the great printers of his day, and he too was burnt out, on the night of 8th February 1808. No better account of the magnitude of his undertakings at that time could be found than his own description of the disaster, which he contributed to the Gentleman's Magazine in the following March : —

' Amongst the books destroyed are many of very great value, and some that can never be replaced. Not to mention a large quantity of handsome quarto Bibles, the works of Swift, Pope, Young, Thomson, Johnson, etc. etc., the Annals of Commerce, and other works which may still be elsewhere purchased, there are several consumed which cannot now be

obtained at any price. The unsold copies of the introduction to the second volume of the Sepulchral

Monuments ; llutchins' Dorsetshire ; Bigland's

Gloucestershire ; Hutchinson's Durham ; Thorpe's

Registrum and Cuslumalc Roffcnsc ; the few numbers that remained of the Bibliothcca Topographica ;

the third volume of Elizabethan Progresses ; the

Illustrations of Ancient Mawvers ; Mr. Gough's History of Fleshy, and his valuable account of the Hartolozzi Coins of the Sclcucidcc, engraved by ; 246 English Printing

Colonel de la Motte's Allusive Arms ; Bishop Atter- bury's Epistolary Correspondence ; and last, not least, the whole of six portions of Mr. Nichols' Leicestershire, and the entire stock of the Gentle- man's Magazine from 1782 to 1807, are irrecover- ably lost.

' Of those in the press, the most important were the concluding portion of Hutchins' Dorsetshire a second volume of (nearly finished) ; Manning and half Mr. Bawdwin's Bray's Surrey (about printed) ; translation of Domesday for Yorkshire (nearly a edition of Dr. finished) ; new Whitaker's History of Craven ; Mr. Gough's British Topography (nearly one the sixth volume of Bri- volume) ; Biographia tannica for Dr. Dic- (ready publishing) ; Kelly's tionary of the Manx Language ; Mr. Neild's History of Prisons ; a genuine unpublished comedy by Sir Richard Steele; Mr. Joseph Reid's unpublished tragedy of Dido ; four volumes of the British Essay- ists ; Mr. Taylor Combe's Appendix to Dr. Hunter's of Dr. Hawes' for Coins ; part annual report 1808 ; a part of the Biographical A necdotes of Hogarth ; two entire volumes, and the half of two other volumes of a new edition of the anecdotes of Mr. Bowyer,' etc. Writing to Bishop Percy in July of that year, Nichols stated that he had lost £10,000 beyond his insurance in this outbreak. John Nichols died on the 26th November 1826, after a long and laborious life. He was a voluminous . The Nineteenth Century 247 author and a born antiquary, his chief works being The History and Antiquities of the Town atid County of Leicester, completed in 1815 in eight foHo vohimes, and Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, and 1 81 2-1 5, an expansion of the Biographical Literary Anecdotes of William Bowyer, which had been printed in 1782. This work was afterwards supplemented by Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, 6 vols. 1817-31, to which his son afterwards added two additional volumes. John Nichols was Common Councillor for the ward of Farringdon Without from 17S4 to 1786, and again from 1787 to 181 1. In 1804 he was Master of the Stationers' Company. He was succeeded in business by his son John Bowyer Nichols, and the lirm subsequently became J. Nichols, Son, and Bentley. Like his father, John Bowyer Nichols was editor and author of many books, and was appointed Printer to the Society of Antiquaries in 1824. He died at Ealing on 19th October 1863, leaving seven children, of whom the eldest, John Gough Nichols, born on 22nd May 1806, became the head of the Gentleman's printing-house, and editor of the Magazine, as his father and grandfather had been before him. He was one of the founders of the

Camden Society (1838), and edited many of its editor of publications. He was the promoter and The Herald and Genealogist, and his researches in this direction were of great importance. The Dictionary of National Biography enumerates thirty- 248 English Printing

four works from his pen, most of which it would be safe to say were also printed by him. He died on 14th November 1873. Another press of importance in the first half of the nineteenth century was that of Thomas Davison. He was the printer of most of Byron's works, and many of those of Campbell, Moore and Words- his chief claim to notice rests worth ; but upon the magnificent edition of ^^'hitaker's History of Richmondshire, in two large folio volumes, printed in 1823, and upon that of Dugdale's Monasticon, in eight folio volumes, issued between 1817 and 1830, an undertaking of great magnitude. In Timperley's Encyclopcsdia it is stated that Davison made important improvements in the manufacture of printing ink, and few of his competitors could approach

him in excellence of work (p. 919). The history of the firm of Eyre and Spottiswoode would, if material were available, form an interesting chapter in the history of Enghsh printing. It is the direct descendant in the royal line of Pynson, Berthelet, the Barkers, and finally of John and Robert Baskett, the last of whom assigned the patent to John Eyre of Landford House, Wilts, whose son, Charles Eyre, the great-grandfather of the present George Edward Briscoe Eyre, succeeded to the business in 1770. During the seventeenth century, the work of the Government and the sovereign had been divided among several firms, but in the eighteenth century it was again given to The Nineteenth Century 249 one man, John Baskett. In the printing of the Bible and Book of Common Prayer, however, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge have also a share but all the other Government work is done ; by Messrs. Eyre and Spottiswoode. Charles Eyre, not being a practical printer, obtained the co-operation of William Strahan. On the renewal of the patent in 1798, the name of John Reeves was inserted, but Mr. Strahan purchased his interest. In 1829, the patent was again renewed to George Eyre, the son of Charles, John Reeves, and Andrew Strahan. George Edward Eyre, son of George William Strahan, was born at Edinburgh in April 1715, and, after serving his apprenticeship in Edinburgh, took his way to London, where, it is believed, he found a post in the office of Andrew Miller. In 1770 the printing-house was removed from Blackfriars to New Street, near Gough Square, Fleet Street. William Strahan was inti- mately associated with the best literature of his time, among those for whom he published being Dr. Johnson, Hume, Adam Smith, Robertson, and many other eminent writers. In 1774 he was Master of the Stationers' Company and Member of Parliament for in the next Parlia- Malmesbury ; ment he sat for Wootton Bassett. Among his greatest friends was Benjamin Franklin, who kept up a correspondence with him in spite of the strong political differences between them. Strahan died at New Street on 9th July 1785, leaving three sons 250 English Printing and two daughters. The youngest son, Andrew, succeeded his father in the Royal Printing House, and one of the daughters married John Spottis- woode of Spottiswoode, whose son, Andrew, afterwards entered the firm. Andrew Strahan was noted for his benevolence, and on his death in 1831 he left handsome bequests to the Literary Fund and the Company of Stationers. Andrew Spottiswoode. who died in 1866 at the ripe age of seventy-nine, had a large printing business apart from the office of Queen's Printer, and his imprint will be found in much of the lighter literature of the period. His son, William Spottis- \voode, after a distinguished career at Oxford, ulti- mately attained high rank as a mathematician, and in 1865 became President of the Mathematical Section of the British Association. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1853, and became its President on 30th November 1878. He died on 27th June 1883. Equally renowned was the firm of Gilbert and Riv- ington. Early in the second half of the eighteenth century (the exact date is not known) John Riving- ton, the fourth son of John Rivington the publisher, and direct descendant of Charles Rivington of the Bible and Crown in Paternoster Row, succeeded to the business of James Emonson, printer, of St. John's Square, Clerkenwell. John Rivington died in 1785, and was succeeded by his widow, who in 1786 took as partner John Marshall. A series of The Nineteenth Century 251 classical works, of which they were the printers, was very favourably received. These included the Greek Testament, Livy, Sophocles, as well as a series of Latin poets and authors, edited by Michael Maittaire. The business next passed into the hands of Deodatus Bye. He in turn admitted Henry Law as partner, and the firm became successively Law and Gilbert and Robert and Richard Gilbert. The partnership being dissolved early in the last century by the death of Robert Gilbert, Richard carried on the business alone until 1830, when he took into partnership j\Ir. William Rivington, a great-grandson of the lirst Charles Rivington, and from that day the firm went by the name of Gilbert and Riv- for ington. Richard Gilbert died in 1852, and eleven years after his death the printing business was carried on by Mr. William Rivington, who issued many valuable and standard works on sub- interest. jects of classical and ecclesiological William Rivington retired from business in 1868, being succeeded by his son, William John Rivington, and his nephew, Alexander. The business increased in their hands one of their first under- largely ; takings being the purchase in 1870 of the plant of the late Mr. William Mavor Watts, by which they secured a large addition to their collection of Oriental the and types. In 1875 Mr. IC. Moslcy entered lirm. Mr. William Jolm Rivington left il lo join llic pub- Searle. lishing house of Sampson Low, Marston and Mr. Alexander Rivington retired from the firm in 252 English Printing

1878, being thus the last Rivington connected with the house, which shortly afterwards was turned into a limited liability company. In 1907 this was absorbed into the business of Messrs. Clowes and Sons. To the firm of Messrs. Clowes of Stamford Street, which by this extension became, with what they already possessed, the largest owners of foreign type in England, belongs the credit of being the first to print books by machinery and the first to print cheap periodical literature. William Clowes the elder, a native of Chichester, born in 1779, was apprenticed to a printer of that town, and coming to London in 1802 commenced business on his own account in the following year 1803. By marriage with the daughter of Mr. Winchester of the Strand, he obtained a share of the Government printing work. His first premises adjoined the garden of the Duke of Northumberland at Charing Cross, and when Clowes took to printing by steam the Duke brought, and lost, an action against him for damages to the ducal garden. A money offer was then made, and the firm moved (in 1824) to Stamford Street, Blackfriars Road, where it still has its headquarters. Here Clowes was chosen to print the Penny Maga- zine, edited by Charles Knight, the first attempt to provide the public with good literature in a cheap periodical form. The work was illustrated with woodcuts, and so great was its success that from No. I to No. 106 there were sold twenty million The Nineteenth Century 253 but the copies ; undertaking was heavily handi- capped by the paper tax of threepence per pound (see The Struggles of a Book, C. Knight, 1850, 8vo). In 1840 an article appeared in the Quarterly Review, written, it is said, by Sir F. B. Head, but which is more in the style of T. F. Dibdin, on the Clowes printing-office. At that time there were no less than nineteen of Applegarth and Cowper's machines at work there, with a daily average of one thousand per hour each. Besides these there were twenty- three hand presses and five hydraulic presses. The foundry employed thirty hands, and the compositors numbered one hundred and sixty. In 1851 Messrs. Clowes printed the official catalogues of the Great Exhibition, for which they specially cast 58,520 lbs. of type. They subsequently printed the catalogues of the Exhibitions of 1883- 1886 and the Royal Academy catalogues, and have been connected from their inception with two works of a very different character, Hymns Ancient and Modern—the circulation of which has to be reckoned in millions—and the great General Catalogue of the Library of the British Museum, for tlicir excellent

' ' printing of which all readers arc indebted to them. In 1872 a branch of the business was opened at Beccles, in Suffolk, where many hundreds of workmen are now employed. William Clowes the elder died in 1847. He was succeeded by his son, William, who dierl in 1883. Two years before this, in 1881, the firm had been turned into a limited 2 54 English Printing liability company, which has always been managed by direct descendants of the first William Clowes. As regards fine printing the chief honours of book production in London during the nineteenth century belong to the Chiswick Press. Charles Whittingham the elder, the founder of the firm, was born at Calledon, near Coventry, in 1767, and was apprenticed to a printer of that city. As soon as his time was out he came to London, and set up a press in Fetter Lane, his chief customers being Willis, a bookseller of Stationers' Court, Jordan of Fleet Street, and Symonds of Paternoster Row. His beginning was humble enough, his chief work lying in the direction of stationery, cards, and small bills. His first important publisher was a certain Heptinstall, who set him to print new editions of Boswell's Johnson, Robertson's America, and other important works. This was enough to set him going, and in 1797 he moved to larger premises in Dean Street, Fetter Lane, and then began to issue illustrated books. In 1803 he took a second workshop at 10 Union Buildings, Leather Lane, and again in 1807 he moved to Goswell Street. In 181 1 he took his foreman Robert Rowland into partnership, and shortly afterwards left him to manage the city business, while he himself set up a press at Chiswick and made his home there at College House. Here he continued to work until his death in 1840. For a short time, from 1824 to 1828, he was joined The Nineteenth Century 255 with his nephew Charles, to whom at his death he left the Chiswick business.

There is not much to be said of the work of the elder Whittingham. He confined his attention to the issue of small books, such as the British Classics, which he began to print in 1803. His books are chiefly notable for the printing of the woodcuts, which by the process known as overlaying, he brought to great perfection. His relations with the publishers were, however, none of the best. They accused him of piracy, and considered it to be against the best interests of the trade to issue small and cheap books. The productions of the elder Whittingham 's press have, moreover, been largely overshadowed by those of his nephew. Charles Whittingham the younger was a genuine artist in printing. He loved books to begin with, and thought no pains too great to bestow upon their production. Born at Mitcham, on 30th October 1795, he was apprenticed to his uncle in 1810. In 1824 he was taken into partnership, but this lasted only four years, and he then set up for himself at 21 Took's Court, Chancery Lane. A near neighbour of his at that time was the publisher William Pickering, who since 1820 had been putting in the hands of the public some excellently printed and dainty volumes. It is stated in the Dictionary of National Biography that the scries known as the Diamond Classics was printed for Pickering at the Chiswick Press. But this was not the case. He had no dealings whatever 2^6 English Printing with the Whittinghams or the Chiswick Press before his introduction to Charles Whittingham the younger in 1829. The Diamofid Classics, which he began to issue while he was living in Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1822, were printed by C. Corrall of Charing Cross, and the Oxford English Classics, in large octavo, chiefly by Talboys and Wheeler of Oxford, while most of his other work, amongst it the first eleven volumes of the works of Bacon, was done by Thomas White, who is first found at Bear Alley, and subsequently at Johnson Court and Crane Court in Fleet Street. Few of these early books of Pickering's had any kind of decoration beyond a device on the title-page. Simplicity, combined with what was best in type and paper, seem to have been the publisher's chief at that time but in some of the Diamond aim ; Classics will be found the small and artistic border- pieces which he afterwards used frequently. The first of Pickering's books in which anything of a very ornamental character occurs is The Bijou, or Annual of Literature, a publication which fixes very clearly his association with Whittingham. The Bijou first appeared in 1828, printed by Thomas White, with one or two charming head-pieces designed by Stothard. The volume for 1829 was also printed by White, and is noticeable as having the publisher's Aldine device, showing that this came into use during the year 1828. The volume for 1830 was printed by C. Whittingham of Took's Court. The Nineteenth Century 257 The meeting between the two men had been brought about by Basil Montague in the summer of 1829. They found themselves kindred spirits on the subject of the artistic treatment of books, and a friendship sprang up between them, that ceased only with Pickering's death in 1854, and was productive of some of the most beautiful books that had ever come from an English press. Mr. Arthur Warren in his book. The Charles Whittinghams, Printers

' (1896), tells us : The two men met frequently for consultation, and whenever the bookseller visited the press, which he often did, there were brave experiments toward. The printer would produce something new in title-pages, or in colour work, or ornament, and the bookseller would propound some new venture in the reproduction of an ancient volume. . . . They made it a point, moreover, to pass their Simdays together, either at the printer's house or at Picker- ing's.' In the artistic production of books they were ably assisted by Whittingham's eldest daughter Char- lotte, and ]\Iary Byfield. The former designed the blocks, many of which were copied from the best French and Italian work ol the sixteenth century, and the latter engraved them. Among the notable books produced by these means were the Aldinc I'ocir^, editions of Milton,

Bacon, Isaak Walton's ('o)nplcic Aui^lcr, the works of George Pcelc, reprints of Caxton's books, and R 258 English Printing

many Prayer-books. In 1844 Pickering and Whit- tingham were in consultation as to the production of an edition of Juvenal to be printed in old-face great primer, and the foundry of the latest descendant of the Caslons was ransacked to supply the fount. The edition was to be rubricated and otherwise decorated, and this, or the printer's stock trouble, * lack of paper,' occasioning some delay, the revived type first appeared in a novel entitled Lady Wil- loughhy's Diary, to which it gave a pleasantly old- world look in keeping with the period of which the story treats, The type thus resuscitated has ever since held its own. Another revival in which the Chiswick Press led the way was that of decorative initials and devices, many of the best French initials of the sixteenth century being carefully copied and used by the firm. Pickering died in 1854, and though Charles Whit- tingham the younger lived to the age of eighty-one, his death not taking place till 1876, he had retired from business in i860. The business was afterwards acquired by Mr. George Bell. In the English provinces Messrs. Clay, of Bungay, in Suffolk, have made for themselves a reputation both as general printers and more particularly for the careful of old texts production English ; and Messrs. Austin, of Hertford, are well known for their Oriental work. But the pre-eminence certamly rests with the Clarendon Press at Oxford, whose work, whether in its innumerable editions of the The Nineteenth Century 259 Bible and Prayer-book, its classical books, or its great dictionaries, is probably, alike in accuracy of composition, in excellence of spacing and press- work, and in clearness of type, among the most flawless that has ever been produced. Book-lovers were at one time known to complain of it as so good as to be uninteresting, but under the Controllcrship of Mr. Horace Hart, while the old excellence has been maintained, the work of the press became distinctly richer and more individual. If England has no lack of good printers at the present day, in Scotland they are, at least, equally plentiful. The Ballantyne Press was founded by James Ballantyne, a solicitor in Kelso, with the aid of Sir \\'alter Scott. Ballantyne and Scott had been school-fellows and chums, and after they had been separated for some years, while Scott was studying in Edinburgh and Ballantyne was carrying on the Kelso Mail, they met and renewed their friendship in the stage coach that ran between Kelso and Glasgow. Shortly afterwards, Ballantyne called on Scott, and begged him to supply a few paragraphs on legal questions of the day to the Kelso Mail. Tliis Scott readily undertook to do, and wlien (he manuscript was ready he took it himself to the printing-office, and with it some of the ballads destined for Lewis's collection tin n publishing in Edinburgh. Before he left he suggested that I'.al- lantyrc should print a few copies of the Ixdlads, so 26o English Printing that he might show his friends in Edinburgh what Ballantyne could do. Twelve copies were accordingly printed, with the title of Apologies for Tales of Terror. These were published in 1799, and Scott was so pleased with their appearance that he promised Ballantyne that he should be the printer of a selection of Border ballads that he was then making. This selection was given the title of Min- strelsy of the Scottish Border, and formed two small

' octavo volumes, with the imprint, Kelso, 1802.' Ballantyne's work, as shown in these volumes, was equal in every way to the best work done by Bensley and Bulmer at this time. Good type and good paper, combined with accuracy and clearness, at once raised Ballantyne's reputation. Longman and Rees, the publishers, declared themselves delighted with the printing, and Scott pressed his friend to remove his press to Edinburgh, where he assured him he would find enough work to repay him for the removal. After some hesitation Ballantyne acquiesced in the proposal, and having found suitable premises in the neighbourhood of

' Holyrood House, set up two presses and a proof one,' and shortly afterwards, in April 1803, printed there the third volume of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. From this time forward Scott made it a point that whatever he wrote or edited should be printed at the Ballantyne Press. The first quarto, the Lay of the Last Minstrel, was published in January 1805. The poem was printed in a The Nineteenth Century 261 somewhat but in other heavy-faced type ; respects the typography left nothing to be desired. In the same year Ballantyne and vScott entered into partnership, Scott taking a third of the profits of the printing-office. So rapidly did James Ballantyne extend his business that in 1819 Scott, in a letter to

' Constable, says that the Ballantyne Press has sixteen presses, of which only twelve are at present employed.' In 1826 the firm became involved in the bankruptcy of the publishers, Messrs. Constable. After this Ballantyne was employed as editor of the Weekly Journal, and the literary management of the printing-house. He died on the 17th January 1833. The firm is now known as Ballantyne, Hanson and Co.. and admirably sustains its old traditions. Another great Scottish printing-house, that of T. and A. Constable, was founded by Thomas Constable, the third son of Archibald Constable the publisher. He learned his art in London under Mr. C. Richards, and on returning to Edinburgh, in 1833, he founded tlic present printing-house in Thistle Street. Shortly afterwards he was appointed Queen's Printer for Scotland, and the patent was afterwards extended to his son Archibald, wlio continued (ill his death titular head of the house. Some years later Thomas Constable received the appointment of Printer to tlio Tniversity of lidiii- burgh. He also inherited and incorporated with his own firm the printing business of his maternal grandfather, David Willison, a business founded in 262 English Printing the eighteenth century. The hrm has always been noted for its scholarly reading and the beauty of its workmanship. Among other Scottish firms who are doing excellent work mention may be made also of Messrs. R. and R. Clark of Edinburgh, and Messrs. Mac- lehose, the printers to the University of Glasgow. In America also much good work has been done, that of the late Theodore De Vinne and of the Riverside Press, Cambridge, being of the very highest excellence. In the history of English printhig, the close of the nineteenth century will always be memor- able for the brilliant but short-lived career of the Kelmscott Press. In May 1891 Mr. William Morris, whose poems and romances had delighted many readers, issued a small quarto book entitled The Story of the Glitter-

ins, Plain, which had been printed at a press that he had set up in the Upper Mall, Hammersmith. Lovers of old books could recognise at once that in its arrangement, and, to some extent, in its types, this first-fruit of the Kelmscott Press went straight back to the fifteenth century, resembhng in its label title-page and richly decorated first page of text the scheme of some of the quartos printed at Venice about 1490. It contained also a number of decorative initial letters, to use the clumsy phrase which the misappropriation of the word capitals to stand

' ' for ordinary majuscules, or upper case letters, The Nineteenth Century 263 makes inevitable. Mr. jSIorris's initials were, of course, true capitals—i.e. they were used to mark the beginnings of chapters, and the only fault that could be found with them w^as that they were a little too large for the quarto page. These also were from Mr. Morris's own designs, ideas in one or two cases having been borrowed from a set used by Sweynheym and Pannartz, the Germans who introduced into but the printing Italy ; borrowing, as always with Mr. Morris, being absolutely free. As for the type, it was clear that it bore some resemblance to that used by Nicolas Jenson the French- man who began printing in Venice in 1470, and whose fmer books, especially those on vellum, arc generally recognised as the supreme examples of that perfection to which the art of printing attained in its earliest infancy. Mr. Morris's type was as rich as Jenson 's at its best, and showed its author- ship by not being quite rigidly Roman, some of the

' ' ' letters betraying a leaning to the Gothic or black-

' letter forms, which had found favour with the majority of the mediaeval scribes. At the end of the book came the colophon in due lifteenth-ccntury style, with information as to when and where it was printed, 'ilio ornamental design bearing the word

' * Kelmscott by way of the device or trade-mark without which no lifteenth-ccntury printer thought his office properly equipped, was not used in this book, but speedily made its appearance. A few months later the appearance of the three- 264 English Printing

volume reprint of Caxton's version of the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine, proved that the Kelmscott Press was capable of turning out a book large enough to tax the resources of a printing- ofifice, and the new book was not only larger but better than its predecessor. It became known that this, but for an accident, should have been the first

book issued from the new it press ; and was evident that the initial letters were exactly right for this larger page, while the splendid woodcuts from the designs of Sir Edward Burne-Jones revived the old glories of book-illustration. In the Golden Legend also appeared the first of those woodcut frontispiece titles which formed, as far as we know, an entirely new departure, and confer on the Kelmscott books one of their chief distinctions. Printed sometimes in white letters on a background of dark scroll- ery, sometimes in black letters on a lighter ground, these titles are always surrounded by a border har- monising with that on the first page of text, which they face. They thus carry out Mr. Morris's cardinal principle, that the unit, both for arrangement of type and for decoration, is always the double page. As far as permanent influence is concerned Mr.

' Morris's Roman letter, the Golden type,' as it was dubbed, from its use in the Golden Legend, is the most important of the three founts which he employed. His own sympathies, however, were too pronouncedly mediaeval for him to be satisfied with it, and for the next large book which he took in The Nineteenth Century 265 hand, a reprint of Caxton's Rccuyell of the Histories of Troy, the first work printed in the Enghsh tongue, he designed a much larger and bolder type, an im-

' ' provement on one of the Gothic founts used by Anton Koberger at Nuremberg in the fifteenth

' ' centur3^ This Troy type was subsequently recut in a smaller size for the double-columned Chaucer, and in both its forms is a very handsome fount, while the characters are so clearly and legibly shaped, that despite its antique origin, any child who knows his letters can learn to read it in a few minutes. With these three founts the Kelmscott Press was with but thoroughly equipped type ; until his final illness took firm hold on him Mr.

Morris was never tired of designing new initials, border-pieces, and decorative titles with a profusion which the old printers, who were parsimonious in these matters, would have thought extravagantly lavish. Including those completed by his exe-

cutors after his death in 1896, he printed in all fifty- three books in sixty-five volumes, and this annual output of nine or ten volumes of all sizes, save the duodecimo, which he refused to recognise, gave his work a cumulative force which greatly increased its influence. Whatever else Morris did, or failed to do, he proved that it was possible for a modern press to beat the fifteenth-century printers on their own ground. Working under his inspiration, though purposely on different lines, Mr. Emery Walker and Mr. Cobdcn Sanderson at tlie Doves Press. Mr. 2 66 English Printing St. John Hornby at his Ashendene Press, and the

' ' late Robert Proctor with his Otter Greek type (though he only hved to see a few printed sheets) have all attained a complete success. The Doves Press books easily beat those of Nicolas Jenson, the finest of the early printers at Venice, on whose famous Roman fount their type is modelled, while the red capitals of the later books are an added Mr. St. of the pleasure ; John Hornby's adaptation fount used at Subiaco by the first printers in Haly, and the capitals of gold or colours which he uses less the editions of the Ores- with it, are no perfect ; teia of .^schylus and of Homer's Odyssey printed with Proctor's Greek type, based on that cut for the Greek Testament of the Complutensian Polyglot, are the two finest pieces of Greek printing which have ever been produced. The measure of success attained by other experimenters, by Messrs. Ricketts and Shannon, for instance, with their Vale types, was less complete, and naturally there have also been some painful failures. But as an antiquarian revival the success of the movement initiated by Morris has been complete. Thanks, moreover, to the interest which his example aroused, there has been a distinct improvement in the better-class commercial printing. Some excellent founts have been designed by Mr. Herbert Home, there has been a tendency to use better ink—and the importance of good ink can hardly be overrated—books are planned with more carefully graded margins, and The Nineteenth Century 267 the standard of press-work is certainly higher. Under the inspiration of Mr. Berkeley Updike and Mr. Bruce Rogers similar progress has been made in the United States; Mr, Rogers, indeed, in a series of books too little known in England, has shown himself one of the surest and at the same time the most versatile of modern printers. It is thus pleasant to be able to end this book with the recognition that both positively and relatively to the work being done elsewhere the Printing Art is now being practised more successfully in the two great Enghsh-speaking countries than at any previous time.

INDEX

ABC and litell Catechism, jy, Barker, Christopher, the first,

78, 79 78, 90-93 ; the number of loi his for Abingdon, printing at, presses, 97 ; patent

Abree, J., 212 Bible printing, 96 ; death, Act for regulating printing, 97 172, 178 — — the second, 127, 132 Albion press, 239 — — the third, 175, 181 Alday, J., 80 Barker, Robert, 97, 127-129, Aide, Edward, 133, 138 131-145 — Elizabeth, 138 Barnes, Joseph, 100, 152 — John, 133 Baskerville, J., 201, 222—225, Allan, George, M.P., his private 230, 231 press, 234, 235 Baskett, J., 190-193 Allnutt, \V. H., 181 Bassandyne, T., 116, I19-120 Alsop, B., 139, 140, 141, 149, Bell, J., 230 162 Bensley, T., 228, 239, 244 America, printing in, 154-155, Berrow, H., 211 183-185, 214-218, 262, 267 Bcrthelct, T., 50-54 ; types Ames' Typographical Antiqui- used by, 51, 52, 53 ties, 99 Bible, 53, 57, 64, 90, 91, 97, Andrew, I.., 43, 47 107, 128, 129, 162, 180, 192, Andrews, R., 198 224, 228, 229, 249 Anglo-Saxon type, 198 — Polyglott, 164-166 Anglo-Saxon initials, 89 — Vinegar, 192 Applcgarth, A., 241 — \\'icked, 145 Arabic type cut by (^aslon, Bible printing in America, 183 199 — — in ScotLmd, 120 Arber, E., transcript of re- Bill, John, 127, 131 gisters, 66, 146, 149 Birmingliam, printing at, 214 Arbiithnot, A., 119-121 Bisliop, (>., 87, 90, 127 Arclier, T., 140 Bishop, I'., 210 — 162 Aspley. \\., 1 a K., 136, 151, Asplyn, 75 IMades, \V., 3. 8 Bliss, J.. 211 his BAnroRD, J., 207 BlomlicUl, v., private press, Ballantync, J., 259-261 235 I'.allanlyne I'rcss, 259-2O1 Blount, E., 133 Bankcs, K., 45, 46. 49 Bodleian Library. 131 Onrt-n Anne, 84 }5arbcr, J., 193-195 "Bolcyn, See Bonham Barbicr, J., 25 Boncrc." 269 270 English Printing

Bonham, W., 41. 42, 43, 59, Caslon, William, the second, 60, 80, 104, 132 226 Bonian, R., 135 — — the third, 226 Bonny, W., 209 Cave, Edward, his association Bookbinding, 26, 51, 102 with F. Collins, 208 Books destroyed by fire, 197, Cav/ood, Gabriel, 88, 90 245, 246 — John, 80, 88, 90 Boston, Mass., 183, 217-218 Caxton, William, i— 14, 29; N., to Bourman, 104 begins use signatures, 7 ; 12 Bourne, C., 213 death, ; device of , — 11, 13 ; N., i 140 early years, ; family, 13 ; Bowyer, \V., the elder, 196-199 first illustrated — — book, 9 ; the younger, 198-199 learns printing at Cologne, 216 Bradford,— A., 4 ; situation of printing W., 184, 185, 214, 215 office, 5 ; translations by, 11, loi Bradshaw, Henry, 2, 9. 13 ; types used by, Bradwood, M., 130 6-12, 19, 20 Breviarium Aberdonense, 115 Censorship of press, 139 Brewster, T., 171, 174 Chandler, R., 214 211 Brice, A., Character of EngUsh printing, Brinckley, S., 112 61-62 Bristol, printing at, 105, 181, Charteris, Henry, 116, 118, 182, 209 121, 122 Broad, A., 182 — R., 123, 124 — T., 182 Chase, William, 209 Brudenell,— J., 168, 175 Chepman, Walter, 114, 115 T., 158 — W., and Myllar, A., types 211 Bryan, S., used by, 1 1 5 180 Buck, T., Chester, printing at, 214 Bulkeley, S., 1 81-182 Chiswick Press, 254—258 Bulmer, W., 228, 230, 243 Cirencester, printing at, 209 Burges, F., 207 Civil War, effect on English Butter, 1 N., 140, 142 printing, 56-1 58 ; effect on Byddell, John, 31, 53, 55, 56 university printing, 179 — R.. 61 Clark, R. &. R., 262 Bynneman, Henry, 75, 112, Classics printed at Foulis 129 Press, 221 Clowes, William, 252 Caius, John, writings of, 76 CoUins, Freeman, 208 Calvert, George, lyv Columbia Press, 239 Cambridge bookbinders, 102 Commonwealth, improvement — printing at, 97, 101-102, in printing under the, 162 —I lo-i II, 180-181 Constable, T. & A., 261-262 University printers, 206- Copland, Robert, 31, 38-40, 207 ; disputes with Com- 17s pany of Stationers, no, 153 — William, 61-81 — its in — printing, character, Cosmographicall Glasse, printed Mass., printing at, 1 55, 183 by J. Day, 67 Canterbury, printing at, 61, Cotes, Thomas, 151 107—108, 212 Cottrel, James, 168 Caslon, \\ illiam, the first, type- — Thomas, type-founder, 227 founder, 199—200, 225 Coventry, secret press at, 113 Index 271 126 Criticism of Baskerville's types, ! 'EngUsh Stock,' 86, 87, 223, 224 Engraved title-pages, 166, 264 Crossgrove, Henry, 208 91, 93, 129, j at, 1 Crownfield, Cornelius, 206-207 1 Eton, printing 30 Exeter, printing at, 182, 2ic^ Daniel, Roger, 180 211 Darby, John, 176 Extracts from Woodfall's led- Darker, S., 210 203-204 116 gers, Davidson, Thomas, 115, Eyreand Spottiswoode, 248-249 Davison, Thomas, 248 Davy, Rev. W., private press Faques, or Fawkes, Richard, of, 237 37. 38 Dawson, George, 162 WiUiam, 36-37 112- Day, John, 63-79, 81, 83, Farley, S., 209-211 129, 166, 178 ; arrested, 65 ; Farmer, Thomas, 234, 236 attempt on his hfe, 74, 75 ; Fat-faced letters, 243

; ; death, 79 birthplace, 63 Fawcett, Rev. J., private press 80 devices, 68, 72, ; family of, 236 80 to, of, ; opposition Ji; — Thomas, 140, 141 Roman type cast by, 73 ; Fawsley, secret press at, 1 1 3 trouble Saxon type, 70 ; Fell, Bishop, gift to Oxford 86 with J. Wolfe, ; types University, 179 used by, 64, 65, 67, 68,70, 75 Fenner, Wilham, 195, 196 — Richard, 80 Fictitious imprints, 46, 105 — Stephen, i 54 Field, John, 162, 180 2 10-2 11 Devon, printing in, — Richard, 95-96, 133 Dexter, Gregory, 144 Fifield, A., type-founder, 148 Dicey, W., 209 Figgins, Vincent, type-founder, the Dictes and Sayinges of 229 Philosophers, 6 ' Fine ' its defects, R. Barker printing, Disputes between 232 and B. Norton, 127 Fire destroys Bowycr's print- 81 Dockwray, Thomas, ing house, 197 ' fount so called, Domesday,' Fire destroys J. Nichols' print- 227 ing house, 245 Dover, Simon, 171, 17 3 First Folio,' of Shakespeare. 266 Doves Press, 265, 134-135 Dublin, press in, 124 Fisher, Bcnjamm, 141 Duff, E. G.. 4, 12. 21, 22, 29, Fleet, T.. 217 4f>. 99 Flcssher. Sec Fletcher Dugard, \V., 159-160 Fletcher, James, 162, 173. '75 Dutch language, books in, 107- — Miles, 138-140, 197 of, 108 Kcv. J., private press East. T., 138 237

1 I'oster, 1S3 Edinburgh, printing at, i 3. John, FouUs. Andrew, 219 129, 261 — Edward the Sixth's Catechism, Robert, 219-222 218 86 Fowlc, D., — 218 Eld, George, 138 Z., Ff)xe, John, 69 Ely, F., 141 , , Franikton, 125 England, first dated book J., Frankfort Fair, 83, I3> printed in, 6 2^2 English Printing

Franklin, Benjamin, 216, 249 Harrison, Richard, 81 — 216 James, Haseley, secret press at, 113 Freez, Frederick, 98 Haviland, John, 139 Fry, Joseph, letter-founder, 225 — Thomas, 140 Fuller, Otto, schoolmaster at Hayes, John, 168, 169, 175 20 V.'estminster, Hebrew letters, cut by John Day, 75 Gateshead, printing at, 182 Hempstead, or Hemel Gaver, James, 31 Hemp- stead, 112 Ged, WilUam, 195—196, 243 Herford, Gent, Thomas, 205, 213 John, 103, 104 Heron, Gibson, T., 53 J., 42 Hester, 81 Gifts of type to Oxford Uni- Andrew, Hills, 162 versity, 179, 180 Henry, Hinton, T., 209 Gilbert and Rivington, 2 5 0-2 5 1 Hodge, Robert, 216 GiLfiUan, J., 214 Hodgkinson, Richard, 163, 167 Glasgow, printing in, 219-222, 262 Hodgkys. See Hoskins Hoe machines for Gloucester, printing in, 209 printing Godbid, William, 168 newspapers, 241 his Holland, type obtained by Goes, H., 27 ; mark found on at English printers from, 1 89 wall-paper Cambridge, 216 99 Holt, J., St. Golden 10 IMor- Hornby, John, 266 Legend, 1483, ; Home, Herbert, 266 ris's reprint, 264 ' Horton, E., Golden type,' 264 176 Hoskins, Samuel, 113 Cough, John, 31, 42, 43, 44, 18 49, 81 Hunt, Thomas, Hurdis, Rev. J., private press Grafton, Richard, 46, 53, 57- of, 237 59, 61, 92, 93 ; appointed Huvin, J., 25 royal printer, 59 ; death, 59 ; device of, 59 Ibbotson, R., 167 Greek type, j-j, 83, 85, 102, fictitious, 46, 130, 138, 14s, 178, 220, 266 Imprints, 105 Imprints of Barker, 13111 and Green, Bartholomew, 1 84 Norton, 127 — Samuel, 155, 183 Cax- — Samuel, junior, 183 Indulgences printed by ton, 8 Greenstreet Press, 112 — — Lettou, 20 Griffin, Edward, 139 of Grismond, John, type-founder, Inferiority Enghsh printing, 148, 162, 167 157 Initial letters, Grover, James, type-founder, 67, 91, 131, 136, 178 264 Ipswich, printing at, 105-106 — J. and T., foundry, 178 Ireland, printing in, 124-125 Guine, H., 216 ' Irish Stock,' 126 Haberdashers forbidden to Irish type, 124-125, 178 sell books, 149 Hamilton, Archibald, 231 Jackson, Joseph, 226 Harper, Thomas, 138, 161, 162 Jaggard, Isaac, 133 Harris, Benjamin, 183, 184 — William, 133 Harrison,— John, 88 James, Thomas, type-founder, Luke, 88 189, 190, 196, 199 Index 273

' John Pryntare,' 104 Maeb, Thomas, 168, 173 i Johnson, Marmaduke, S^ Machlinia, William de, 21, 22 ; Jones, WiUiam, 142, 149 types used by, 22, 23 Jugge, Richard, 78, 81, 90, 91 ; Madan, Falconer, 152 device, 91 Mahon, Charles, third Earl Junius, F., gift to Oxford Uni- Stanhope, 238, 243 180 versity, Manchester, printing at, 214 Mansion, Keimer, Samuel, 216 Colard, 3 Ma rprelate Press, 1 1 2-1 1 Kele, John, 81 3 Marriot, John, 137 — Richard, 49, 60 Marsh, Thomas, 78, 81 — Thomas, 42, 60 Marshall, Kelmscott Press, 262-265 John, 250 Martin, William, t\-pc-founder, King's Printing House, 127, 230, 244 132, 139, 190-191 Marvland, U.S.A., Kingston, Felix, 133 printing in, 184 Kirgate, Thomas, 234 S. Matthewes, Augustine, 142, 149 Kneeland, , 217 Maxey, J., 161 Koenig, F., invents printing Maxwell, D., 168 machine, 239 Maycocke, John, 176, 177 Kyrforth, C., 100 Mayler, 61 Lair. See Siberch, John Middleton, William, 55, 61 Lamb, Sir J., 143, 149 Milner, Ursyn, 99 Lant, Richard, 61, 81 Molesey, East, secret press at, 'Latin Stock,' 127 Laud, William, Archbishop of Monopolies, 78, 93, 96 Canterbury, 145 Morris, William, 262-265 Law books, patent for printing, Morton Missal, 35 92 Moscley, Humphrey, 159 Leach, T., 1 76 Moxon, James, type-founder, I>ee, William, 138 162, 177-178

1 1 1 acts as Legate, John, ; Mychell, John, 61, 107-108 deputy for Robert Barker, Myllar, Andrew, 114, 115 181

1 1 1 first Legge, Cantrell, , 153 Navigation, English book Lckpreuik, Robert, 117, 118 on, 40 L'Estrangc, Sir R., 169-174 Newberry, Ralph, 127 - Lettou, John, 8, 20-22 Newcastle on - Tync, printing Litchfield, John, 152 at, 181, 182, 214 Liverpool, printing at, 214 Newcomb, Thomas, 162, 163, Ixmdon,— custom of the city, 84 K'M. 171. 175 I'irc of, 174, 175 New Haven, U.S.A., printing — number of printers in, in at, 215 1649, 161 Newspapers, 208-218 — — in 1663, 170 News sheets, 156, 157 — — in 1668, 185-188 New York, printing in, 164, London Gazette, printer of, 177 2 1 4-2 1 6 Low state of printing in Fng- Nichols, Arthur, type-founder, land in 1700, 189 148, I 50 Lowncs, Ilumjihrey, 138 — John, 245-247 — Matthew, 138 — John Howycr, 247 Lyon, B., 208 — Jolin (lough, 247 274 EnMish Printino:

Norton, Bonham, 60, 127, 129, Philadelphia, printing in, 216 131, 132, 153 Pickering, William, 255, 257 — John, 127, 129-130, 131, Pictorial initials, 85, 86, 129 149 Pine, \\illiam, 224 — Joyce, 131 Plague, 138, 174 — Mark, 91 Powell, Humphrey, 81, 124 — Roger, 162 — Thomas, 54, 81 — William, 60, 81, 129, 132 — William, 55, 81 Norwich, printing in, 108-109, Printers appointed under de- 207—209 cree of 1637, 148 book- Notary, Julian, 25 ; Printing machines, 240 — sale 1 binder, 26 ; devices of, 32, materials, of, 39 to — 33 ; removal London, patents, 129, 131 used Private 32 ; types by, 32 presses, 74, 232-237 Notes on London printing Proctor, Robert, 47, 266 houses, 149 Proposals for regulating the j Nottingham, printing at, 181, press, 169— 171 214 Provincial presses, 98-113, Nuthead, W., 184 205-214 Nutt, Richard, 179 Purfoot, Thomas, 81 Purslowe, Elizabeth, 151, 162 Okes, John, 141, 151 — George, 139 — Nicholas, 137-149 — Thomas, 144, 149 Old -face type, revived by the Pynson, Richard, 23-25, 50, Chisw ck Press, 258 54, 55 ; appointed royal Oswen, J., 105-106 printer, 34 ; death, 36 ; Oulton, R., 151 devices, ; first dated a fictitious im- 35 Overton, J., to Fleet book, 24 ; removal print, 105 used Street, 33 ; types by, at, Oxford, printing 17-18, 99, will 24, 33 ; of, 36 152, 205-206, 258-259 — R., — first junior, 36 book printed at, 17 ; number of books printed at Quartos, \W. de Worde's pre- first 1 8 used press, ; types ference for, 29—30 at first 1 8—1 9 press, Raikes, Robert, 209 — type foundry at, 1 79 Rastell, John, 41-43 Paine, Thomas, 149 — William, 43, 89 Palmer, J., 217 Raworth, Richard, 145, 149 — Samuel, 200 — Ruth, 159 Paper-mill in England, Tot- Redman, Robert, 46, 53, 54, 55 tell's scheme for, 93 Reed, T. B., 70, 73, 125, 130, Parker, J., 215 166, 179, 221, 223 — Matthew, Archbishop of Revolt against monopolies, 79 Canterbury, 68, 76, 86, 87, Reynes, John, 88 91 Richardson, Samuel, 201—202 Parsons, Marmaduke, 149 — Wilham, 202 Pennsylvania, printing in, 1 84 Rivington, Charles, 249 Pepwell, Henry, 31, 39, 43, 60, — J-. 250 used 104 ; types by, 43 Roberts, John, 78 Petit, Thomas, 61 Robinson, William, 233 Petition for incorporation, by Rogers, Bruce, 267 London printers, 167 — G., 218 Index 275

Roman tj-pe introduced by Stationers' Company, 65, 66, Pynson, 34 80-82, 89, 90, 93, no, 126, — — cast by J. Day, Ti 127, 137, 138, 153, 168, 170, — — — by Caslon the 171, 175, 197 first, 200 — list of members, 80-82 Rood, Theodoric, 1 7 — Order made by, 1 32 Ross, J., 121 Stereotyping, 195-196, 243 Rotary press, 242 Stirling, printing at, 119 Roycroft, Thomas, 162, 165, Story, J., 115 168, 173, 176 Strahan, William, 249 Royston, John, 162 Strawberry Hill Press, 232-234 — Richard, 162, 173 Streator, John, 168 Russhe, John, 24, 25 Struggle for religious liberty, Rycharde, Dan Thomas, 102 140-141 Survey of the Printing Presses, Sanderson, C, 266 1668, 175, 185-186 Saxon type, 70, 198 Surveyor of the Press. Sec Sayle, Charles, 99 L'Estrange, Sir R. Scoiar, John, 99-101 Symmes, V., 1 13 Scolokar, Anthony, 64, 105 Scotland, in, 1 14-124, printing Tabb, Henry, 104 219-222, 259-262 TavLstock, printing at, 102 Scott, E. L. 13, 20 J., Taylor, William, 144 Secret 1 1 i-i 12 presses, Thomas, Thomas, no Seres, William, 61, 63, 82, 105 Thomlyn, A., 113 Shakespeare, William, 95, 96, Thorne, John, 46 133 Times first steam, Sheldonian Theatre used as printed by 241 printing office, 180 Title-page, first Westminster, Shober, F., 216 14 Short, J., I 52 1 1 Title-pages, engraved, 29-1 3 , Shrewsbury, printing at, 181 137, 166, 264 Siberch, John, 101-102 TotteU, Richard, 59, 78, 82, Simmons, Matthew, 159, 162 89. 91, 93 Skot, John, 44, 1 16 Tottcll's Miscellany, 92 Smethwicke, J., 133 Toye, lilizabetli, 90 Smyth, Robert, 123 — Robert, 90, 112 Snodham, Thomas, 138 Treveris, P., 46 Solempne, A. dc, 107-108 Tunbridgc Wells, printing at, Sparke, Michael, 142-143 2 12 Spottiswoodc, Andrew, 250 Turner, William, 142 St. Albans, printing at, 19, 103 Twyn, John, trial and execu- — Manor at Westminster, 20 tion of, I 72-1 JT, St. Andrews, printing at, 118 Tyj)c-f()un(l(:r.s, 14K, 177—170 .S7. Chrysoslom, Works of, 130 Type-founding in England, low Stanhope press, 238 state of, 1 89 Stansby, William, 135-136, Type npecimen l)Ooks, 225, 226 i3«. "39. "S". >5y Staples, A., 213 Star Chamber decrees, 77, 97, Univkrsity Presses, 151-154 142, 146, 147 Updike, T^, 267 — — prosecutions, 1 41-144 Urie, Robert, type-founder, 220 276 English Printing

Vale Press, 266 Windct, John, 135, 136 VautroUier, Thomas, 78, 93— Wolf, John, 79, 163 character of his 95 ; work, Wolfe,— Joan, 87 ; death. 94 94 ; devices, 95 ; Reginald, 82-87 '> ap- visits 122 Edinburgh, pointed king's printer, 86 ; ' ' collects Vinegar Bible, 192 birthplace, 84 ; ma-

Virginia, U.S.A., printing in, terial for a chronicle, 87 ; free- 184 death, 87 ; device, 85 ;

dom, 84 ; trouble with J.

112- 86 ; Waldegrave, Robert, Day, ; tjipes used by, 84 "3. 123 will, 87 Waley, John, 89 Wolston Priory, secret press Walker, Emery, 265 at, 1 1 3 — Joseph, 173 Woodbridge, New Jersey, Walkley, Thomas, 159 U.S.A., printing at, 215 Walley, H., 135 Woodcock, Thomas, 91 Ward, C, 214 Woodcut borders, 11, 52, 53, — Roger, 79 89, 92 Warren, A., 163, 175 Woodfall, Henry, 202, 204 — Thomas, 163 Worcester, printing in, 106— Waterson, Simon, 173 107, 211 Watkins, Richard, 78 Worde, Wynkyn de, 14—16, 25, Watson, H., 99 27-31, 44, 45, 47, 55, 56, Watts, John, 199, 217 178; birthplace, 14; death,

Welsh book printed at Oxford, 31 ; devices, 30, 31 ; number 100 of books printed by, 28-29 ; 16 Westminster, printers at, ';-i6, removal to Fleet Street, ; 25 types used by, 14, 15, 16,

Weyman, W., 215 27, 28 ; will, 31 ; woodcuts, Whitchurch, Edward, 53, 57 30 White, Grace, 213 Wrench, W., 152 — John, 212, 214 Wright, Thomas, type-founder, Whittaker, T., 131 148 \^'hittingham, Charles, the Wyer, Robert, 37, 47-49. 61, elder, 254 82, 98-100, 1 15 — — the younger, 255 ' •Wicked Bible, 145 York, printing at, 98, 181, Wilde, J., 201 2 1 2-2 1 3 Wilkes, John, private press of, Young, Robert, 139, 140 236 \\'ilson. Dr. A., type-founder, 221 Zenger, J. P., 215

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